Worn out and worthless. While from door to door,
This old Man creeps, the villagers in him Behold a record which together binds Past deeds and offices of charity,
Else unremembered, and so keeps alive
The kindly mood in hearts which lapse of years, And that half-wisdom half-experience gives, Make slow to feel, and by sure steps resign
To selfishness and cold oblivious cares. Among the farms and solitary huts, Hamlets and thinly-scattered villages, Where'er the aged Beggar takes his rounds, The mild necessity of use compels
To acts of love; and habit does the work Of reason; yet prepares that after-joy Which reason cherishes. And thus the soul, By that sweet taste of pleasure unpursued, Doth find herself insensibly disposed
To virtue and true goodness.
By their good works exalted, lofty minds
And meditative, authors of delight
And happiness, which to the end of time
Will live, and spread, and kindle: even such minds
In childhood, from this solitary Being,
Or from like wanderer, haply have received.
(A thing more precious far than all that books. Or the solicitudes of love can do!)
That first mild touch of sympathy and thought, In which they found their kindred with a world Where want and sorrow were. The easy man
Who sits at his own door,-and, like the pear That overhangs his head from the green wall, Feeds in the sunshine; the robust and young, The prosperous and unthinking, they who live Sheltered, and flourish in a little grove
Of their own kindred ;-all behold in him A silent monitor, which on their minds Must needs impress a transitory thought Of self-congratulation, to the heart Of each recalling his peculiar boons, His charters and exemptions; and, perchance, Though he to no one give the fortitude And circumspection needful to preserve His present blessings, and to husband up The respite of the season, he, at least, And 'tis no vulgar service, makes them felt.
Yet further.Many, I believe, there are Who live a life of virtuous decency, Men who can hear the Decalogue and feel No self-reproach; who of the moral law Established in the land where they abide Are strict observers; and not negligent In acts of love to those with whom they dwell, Their kindred, and the children of their blood. Praise be to such, and to their slumbers peace!
-But of the poor man ask, the abject poor; Go, and demand of him, if there be here In this cold abstinence from evil deeds, And these inevitable charities,
Wherewith to satisfy the human soul?
No-man is dear to man; the poorest poor Long for some moments in a weary life
When they can know and feel that they have been, Themselves, the fathers and the dealers-out Of some small blessings; have been kind to such As needed kindness, for this single cause, That we have all of us one human heart. -Such pleasure is to one kind Being known, My neighbour, when with punctual care, each week Duly as Friday comes, though pressed herself By her own wants, she from her store of meal Takes one unsparing handful for the scrip Of this old Mendicant, and, from her door Returning with exhilarated heart,
Sits by her fire, and builds her hope in heaven. Then let him pass, a blessing on his head! And while in that vast solitude to which The tide of things has borne him, he appears To breathe and live but for himself alone, Unblamed, uninjured, let him bear about The good which the benignant law of Heaven Has hung around him: and, while life is his, Still let him prompt the unlettered villagers
To tender offices and pensive thoughts. -Then let him pass, a blessing on his head! And, long as he can wander, let him breathe The freshness of the valleys; let his blood Struggle with frosty air and winter snows; And let the chartered wind that sweeps the heath Beat his grey locks against his withered face. Reverence the hope whose vital anxiousness Gives the last human interest to his heart. May never HOUSE, misnamed of INDUSTRY, Make him a captive !-for that pent-up din, Those life-consuming sounds that clog the air, Be his the natural silence of old age! Let him be free of mountain solitudes; And have around him, whether heard or not, The pleasant melody of woodland birds. Few are his pleasures: if his eyes have now Been doomed so long to settle upon earth That not without some effort they behold The countenance of the horizontal sun, Rising or setting, let the light at least Find a free entrance to their languid orbs. And let him, where and when he will, sit down Beneath the trees, or on a grassy bank Of highway side, and with the little birds. Share his chance-gathered meal; and, finally, As in the eye of Nature he has lived,
So in the eye of Nature let him die!
IF from the public way you turn your steps Up the tumultuous brook of Green-head Ghyll, You will suppose that with an upright path Your feet must struggle; in such bold ascent The pastoral mountains front you, face to face. But, courage! for around that boisterous brook The mountains have all opened out themselves, And made a hidden valley of their own. No habitation can be seen; but they
Who journey thither find themselves alone With a few sheep, with rocks and stones, and kites That overhead are sailing in the sky.
It is in truth an utter solitude;
Nor should I have made mention of this Dell But for one object which you might pass by, Might see and notice not. Beside the brook Appears a straggling heap of unhewn stones! And to that simple object appertains A story-unenriched with strange events, Yet not unfit, I deem, for the fireside, Or for the summer shade. It was the first Of those domestic tales that spake to me
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