The sauntering horseman traveller does not throw With careless hand his alms upon the ground, But stops,-that he may safely lodge the coin Within the old man's hat; nor quits him so, But still, when he has given his horse the rein, Towards the aged Beggar turns a look Side-long-and half reverted. She who tends The toll-gate, when in Summer at her door She turns her wheel, if on the road she sees The aged Beggar coming, quits her work, And lifts the latch for him that he may pass. The post-boy, when his rattling wheels o'ertake The aged Beggar in the woody lane.
Shouts to him from behind; and, if perchance The old man does not change his course, the boy Turns with less noisy wheels to the road-side, And passes gentle by-without a curse Upon his lips, or anger at his heart.
He travels on, a solitary man,
His age has no companion. On the ground His eyes are turned, and, as he moves along, They move along the ground; and, evermore, Instead of common and habitual sight
Of fields with rural works, of hill and dale, And the blue sky, one little span of earth Is all his prospect. Thus, from day to day, Bowbent, his eyes for ever on the ground, He plies his weary journey; seeing still, And never knowing that he sees, some straw, Some scattered leaf, or marks which, in one track, The nails of cart or chariot-wheel have left Impressed on the white road,-in the same line, At distance still the same. Poor traveller! His staff trails with him; scarcely do his feet Disturb the Summer dust; he is so still In look and motion, that the cottage curs, Ere he have passed the door, will turn away, Weary of barking at him. Boys and girls, The vacant and the busy, maids and youths, And urchins newly breeched-all pass him by : Him even the slow-paced waggon leaves behind.
But deem not this man useless.-Statesman! ye Who are so restless in your wisdom, ye Who have a broom still ready in your hands To rid the world of nuisances; ye proud, Heart-swoln, while in your pride ye contemplate Your talents, power, and wisdom, deem him not A burden of the earth! "Tis Nature's law That none, the meanest of created things, Of forms created the most vile and brute, The dullest or most noxious, should exist Divorced from good-a spirit and pulse of good, A life and soul, to every mode of being
Inseparably linked. While thus he creeps From door to door, 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 itself insensibly disposed
To virtue and true goodness. Some there are,
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; minds like these
In childhood, from this solitary being,
This helpless wanderer, have perchance received (A hing 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 Which 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.
-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, Meanwhile, in any tenderness of heart
Or act of love to those with whom we 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 prest herself
By her own wants, she from her chest 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 led 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 hig, 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 gray 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 on the 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 by the 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!
THE FARMER OF TILSBURY VALE 'Tis not for the unfeeling, the falsely refined, The squeamish in taste, and the narrow of mind, And the small critic wielding his delicate pen, That I sing of old Adam, the pride of old men. He dwells in the centre of London's wide town; His staff is a sceptre-his gray hairs a crown; Erect as a sunflower he stands, and the streak Of the unfaded rose is expressed on his cheek.
'Mid the dews, in the sunshine of morn,-'mid the joy Of the fields, he collected that bloom, when a boy;
There fashioned that countenance, which, in spite of a stain That his life hath received, to the last will remain.
A farmer he was; and his house far and near Was the boast of the country for excellent cheer: How oft have I heard in sweet Tilsbury Vale
Of the silver-rimmed horn whence he dealt his good ale.
Yet Adam was far as the farthest from ruin,
His fields seemed to know what their master was doing; And turnips, and corn-land, and meadow, and lea,
All caught the infection-as generous as he.
Yet Adam prized little the feast and the bowl,— The fields better suited the ease of his soul:
He strayed through the fields like an indolent wight, The quiet of Nature was Adam's delight.
For Adam was simple in thought, and the poor, Familiar with him, made an inn of his door: He gave them the best that he had; or, to say What less may mislead you, they took it away.
Thus thirty smooth years did he thrive on his farm ; The genius of plenty preserved him from harm: At length, what to most is a season of sorrow,
His means are run out, he must beg, or must borrow.
To the neighbours he went,-all were free with their money;
For his hive had so long been replenished with honey
That they dreamt not of dearth;-He continued his rounds, Knocked here-and knocked there, pounds still adding to pounds.
He paid what he could with this ill-gotten pelf, And something, it might be, reserved for himself: Then (what is too true), without hinting a word,
Turned his back on the country; and off like a bird.
You lift up your eyes!-and I guess that you frame A judgment too harsh of the sin and the shame;
In him it was scarcely a business of art,
For this he did all in the ease of his heart.
To London-a sad emigration I ween
With his gray hairs he went from the brook and the green; And there, with small wealth but his legs and his hands, As lonely he stood as a crow on the sands.
All trades, as needs was, did old Adam assume,- Served as stable-boy, errand-boy, porter, and groom; But Nature is gracious, necessity kind,
And, in spite of the shame that may lurk in his mind,
He seems ten birth-days younger, is green and is stout; Twice as fast as before does his blood run about; You would say that each hair of his beard was alive, And his fingers are busy as bees in a hive.
For he's not like an old man that leisurely goes About work that he knows, in a track that he knows; But often his mind is compelled to demur, And you guess that the more then his body must stir.
In the throng of the town like a stranger is he, Like one whose own country's far over the sea; And Nature, while through the great city he hies, Full ten times a day takes his heart by surprise.
This gives him the fancy of one that is young, More of soul in his face than of words on his tongue; Like a maiden of twenty he trembles and sighs, And tears of fifteen have come into his eyes.
What's a tempest to him, or the dry parching heats? Yet he watches the clouds that pass over the streets; With a look of such earnestness often will stand,
You might think he'd twelve reapers at work in the Strand.
Where proud Covent Garden, in desolate hours
Of snow and hoar-frost, spreads her fruit and her flowers, Old Adam will smile at the pains that have made Poor Winter look fine in such strange masquerade.
'Mid coaches and chariots, a waggon of straw, Like a magnet, the heart of old Adam can draw; With a thousand soft pictures his memory will team, And his hearing is touched with the sounds of a dream.
Up the Haymarket hill he oft whistles his way, Thrusts his hands in the waggon, and smells at the hay He thinks of the fields he so often hath mown,
And is happy as if the rich freight were his own.
But chiefly to Smithfield he loves to repair,
If you pass by at morning you'll meet with him there: The breath of the cows you may see him inhale, And his heart all the while is in Tilsbury Vale.
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