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 1
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.

2

—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,1
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!

ANIMAL TRANQUILLITY AND DECAY.

Comp. 1798. Pub. 1798.

[If I recollect right, these verses were an overflow from the Old Cumberland Beggar."]

In the edition of 1798 this Poem was called, "Old Man travelling; animal tranquillity and decay."-Ed.

THE little hedgerow birds,

That peck along the road, regard him not.
He travels on, and in his face, his step,
His gait, is one expression: every limb,
His look and bending figure, all bespeak

A man who does not move with pain, but moves
With thought. He is insensibly subdued
To settled quiet he is one by whom
All effort seems forgotten; one to whom
Long patience hath such mild composure given
That patience now doth seem a thing of which
He hath no need. He is by nature led
To peace so perfect that the young behold
With envy what the Old Man hardly feels. 1

1 Added in edition 1798.

---I asked him whither he was bound, and what
The object of his journey; he replied,

"Sir! I am going many miles to take

A last leave of my son, a mariner,

Who from a sea-fight has been brought to Falmouth,
And there is lying in an hospital.”-

he replied

That he was going many miles to take
A last leave of his son, a mariner,

&c.

1800 to 1805.

APPENDIX.