Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth

by William Wordsworth

  THE OLD CUMBERLAND BEGGAR.

  A DESCRIPTION.

  The class of Beggars to which the old man here described belongs, will probably soon be extinct. It consisted of poor, and, mostly, old and infirm persons, who confined themselves to a stated round in their neighbourhood, and had certain fixed days, on which, at different houses, they regularly received charity; sometimes in money, but mostly in provisions.

  I saw an aged Beggar in my walk,

  And he was seated by the highway side

  On a low structure of rude masonry

  Built at the foot of a huge hill, that they

  Who lead their horses down the steep rough road

  May thence remount at ease. The aged man

  Had placed his staff across the broad smooth stone

  That overlays the pile, and from a bag

  All white with flour the dole of village dames,

  He drew his scraps and fragments, one by one,

  And scann’d them with a fix’d and serious look

  Of idle computation. In the sun,

  Upon the second step of that small pile,

  Surrounded by those wild unpeopled hills,

  He sate, and eat his food in solitude;

  And ever, scatter’d from his palsied hand,

  That still attempting to prevent the waste,

  Was baffled still, the crumbs in little showers

  Fell on the ground, and the small mountain birds,

  Not venturing yet to peck their destin’d meal,

  Approached within the length of half his staff.

  Him from my childhood have I known, and then

  He was so old, he seems not older now;

  He travels on, a solitary man,

  So helpless in appearance, that for him

  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,

  Sidelong 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 gently 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 turn’d, 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 scatter’d leaf, or marks which, in one track,

  The nails of cart or chariot wheel have left

  Impress’d 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 pass’d the door, will turn away

  Weary of barking at him. Boys and girls,

  The vacant and the busy, maids and youths,

  And urchins newly breech’d all pass him by:

  Him even the slow-paced waggon leaves behind.

  But deem not this man useless. — Statesmen! 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 burthen 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 link’d. 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 unremember’d, 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 unpursu’d

  Doth find itself insensibly dispos’d

  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 receiv’d,

  (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

  Which overhangs his head from the green wall,

  Feeds in the sunshine; the robust and young,

  The prosperous and unthinking, they who live

  Shelter’d, 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

  Establish’d 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 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 sati
sfy 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 press’d 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 tire and builds her hope in heav’n.

  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,

  Unblam’d, uninjur’d, 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 unletter’d 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 vallies, let his blood

  Struggle with frosty air and winter snows,

  And let the charter’d wind that sweeps the heath

  Beat his grey locks against his wither’d 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 nor,

  The pleasant melody of woodland birds.

  Few are his pleasures; if his eyes, which now

  Have been so long familiar with the earth,

  No more behold 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 high-way side, and with the little birds

  Share his chance-gather’d meal, and, finally,

  As in the eye of Nature he has liv’d,

  So in the eye of Nature let him die.

  RURAL ARCHITECTURE.

  There’s George Fisher, Charles Fleming, and Reginald Shore,

  Three rosy-cheek’d School-boys, the highest not more

  Than the height of a Counsellor’s bag;

  To the top of Great How did it please them to climb,

  and there they built up without mortar or lime

  A Man on the peak of the crag.

  They built him of stones gather’d up as they lay,

  They built him and christen’d him all in one day,

  An Urchin both vigorous and hale;

  And so without scruple they call’d him Ralph Jones.

  Now Ralph is renown’d for the length of his bones;

  The Magog of Legberthwaite dale.

  Just half a week after the Wind sallied forth,

  And, in anger or merriment, out of the North

  Coming on with a terrible pother,

  From the peak of the crag blew the Giant away.

  And what did these School-boys? — The very next day

  They went and they built up another.

  — Some little I’ve seen of blind boisterous works

  In Paris and London, ‘mong Christians or Turks,

  Spirits busy to do and undo:

  At remembrance whereof my blood sometimes will flag.

  — Then, light-hearted Boys, to the top of the Crag!

  And I’ll build up a Giant with you.

  Great How is a single and conspicuous hill, which rises towards the foot of Thirl-mere, on the western side of the beautiful dale of Legberthwaite, along the ‘high road between Keswick’ and Ambleside.

  A POET’S EPITAPH.

  Art thou a Statesman, in the van

  Of public business train’d and bred,

  — First learn to love one living man;

  Then may’st thou think upon the dead.

  A Lawyer art thou? — draw not nigh;

  Go, carry to some other place

  The hardness of thy coward eye,

  The falshood of thy sallow face.

  Art thou a man of purple cheer?

  A rosy man, right plump to see?

  Approach; yet Doctor, not too near:

  This grave no cushion is for thee.

  Art thou a man of gallant pride,

  A Soldier, and no mail of chaff?

  Welcome! — but lay thy sword aside,

  And lean upon a Peasant’s staff.

  Physician art thou? One, all eyes,

  Philosopher! a fingering slave,

  One that would peep and botanize

  Upon his mother’s grave?

  Wrapp’d closely in thy sensual fleece

  O turn aside, and take, I pray,

  That he below may rest in peace,

  Thy pin-point of a soul away!

  — A Moralist perchance appears;

  Led, Heaven knows how! to this poor sod:

  And He has neither eyes nor ears;

  Himself his world, and his own God;

  One to whose smooth-rubb’d soul can cling

  Nor form nor feeling great nor small,

  A reasoning, self-sufficing thing,

  An intellectual All in All!

  Shut close the door! press down the latch:

  Sleep in thy intellectual crust,

  Nor lose ten tickings of thy watch,

  Near this unprofitable dust.

  But who is He with modest looks,

  And clad in homely russet brown?

  He murmurs near the running brooks

  A music sweeter than their own.

  He is retired as noontide dew,

  Or fountain in a noonday grove;

  And you must love him, ere to you

  He will seem worthy of your love.

  The outward shews of sky and earth.

  Of hill and valley he has view’d;

  And impulses of deeper birth

  Have come to him in solitude.

  In common things that round us lie

  Some random truths he can impart

  The harvest of a quiet eye

  That broods and sleeps on his own heart.

  But he is weak, both man and boy,

  Hath been an idler in the land;

  Contented if he might enjoy

  The things which others understand.

  — Come hither in thy hour of strength,

  Come, weak as is a breaking wave!

  Here stretch thy body at full length

  Or build thy house upon this grave. —

  A CHARACTER IN THE ANTITHETICAL MANNER.

  I marvel how Nature could ever find space

  For the weight and the levity seen in his face:

  There’s thought and no thought, and there’s paleness and bloom,

  And bustle and sluggishness, pleasure and gloom.

  There’s weakness, and strength both redundant and vain;

  Such strength, as if ever affliction and pain

  Could pierce through a temper that’s soft to disease,

  Would be rational peace — a philosopher’s ease.

  There’s indifference, alike when he fails and succeeds,

  And attention full ten times as much as there needs,

&nbs
p; Pride where there’s no envy, there’s so much of joy;

  And mildness, and spirit both forward and coy.

  There’s freedom, and sometimes a diffident stare

  Of shame scarcely seeming to know that she’s there.

  There’s virtue, the title it surely may claim,

  Yet wants, heaven knows what, to be worthy the name.

  What a picture! ‘tis drawn without nature or art,

  — Yet the Man would at once run away with your heart,

  And I for five centuries right gladly would be

  Such an odd, such a kind happy creature as he.

  A FRAGMENT

  Between two sister moorland rills

  There is a spot that seems to lie

  Sacred to flowrets of the hills,

  And sacred to the sky.

  And in this smooth and open dell

  There is a tempest-stricken tree;

  A corner stone by lightning cut,

  The last stone of a cottage hut;

  And in this dell you see

  A thing no storm can e’er destroy,

  The shadow of a Danish Boy.

  In clouds above, the lark is heard,

  He sings his blithest and his beet;

  But in this lonesome nook the bird

  Did never build his nest.

  No beast, no bird hath here his home;

  The bees borne on the breezy air

  Pass high above those fragrant bells

  To other flowers, to other dells.

  Nor ever linger there.

  The Danish Boy walks here alone:

  The lovely dell is all his own.

  A spirit of noon day is he,

  He seems a Form of flesh and blood;

  A piping Shepherd he might be,

  A Herd-boy of the wood.

  A regal vest of fur he wears,

  In colour like a raven’s wing;

  It fears nor rain, nor wind, nor dew,

  But in the storm ‘tis fresh and blue

  As budding pines in Spring;

  His helmet has a vernal grace,

  Fresh as the bloom upon his face.

  A harp is from his shoulder slung;

  He rests the harp upon his knee,

  And there in a forgotten tongue

  He warbles melody.

  Of flocks and herds both far and near

  He is the darling and the joy,

  And often, when no cause appears,

  The mountain ponies prick their ears,

  They hear the Danish Boy,

  While in the dell he sits alone

  Beside the tree and corner-stone.

  When near this blasted tree you pass,

  Two sods are plainly to be seen

  Close at its root, and each with grass

  Is cover’d fresh and green.

  Like turf upon a new-made grave