Wordsworth (10 page)

    
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,

Bow-bent, his eyes for ever on the ground,

He plies his weary journey; seeing still,

And seldom 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 has 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 – 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, or 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. Then be assured

That least of all can aught – that ever owned

The heaven-regarding eye and front sublime

Which man is born to – sink, howe’er depressed,

So low as to be scorned without a sin;

Without offence to God cast out of view;

Like the dry remnant of a garden-flower

Whose seeds are shed, or as an implement

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. 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: 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!

    One morning (raw it was and wet –

    A foggy day in winter time)

    A Woman on the road I met,

    Not old, though something past her prime:

    Majestic in her person, tall and straight;

And like a Roman matron’s was her mien and gait.

    The ancient spirit is not dead;

    Old times, thought I, are breathing there;

    Proud was I that my country bred

    Such strength, a dignity so fair:

    She begged an alms, like one in poor estate;

I looked at her again, nor did my pride abate.

    When from these lofty thoughts I woke,

    ‘What is it,’ I said, ‘that you bear,

    Beneath the covert of your Cloak,

    Protected from this cold damp air?’

    She answered, soon as she the question heard,

‘A simple burden, Sir, a little Singing-bird.’

    
And, thus continuing, she said,

    ’I had a Son, who many a day

    Sailed on the seas, but he is dead;

    In Denmark he was cast away:

    And I have travelled weary miles to see

If aught which he had owned might still remain for me.

    'The bird and cage they both were his:

    ’Twas my Son’s bird; and neat and trim

    He kept it: many voyages

    The singing-bird had gone with him;

    When last he sailed, he left the bird behind;

From bodings, as might be, that hung upon his mind.

    ‘He to a fellow-lodger’s care

    Had left it, to be watched and fed,

    And pipe its song in safety; – there

    I found it when my Son was dead;

    And now, God help me for my little wit!

I bear it with me, Sir; – he took so much delight in it.’

Oh! what’s the matter? what’s the matter?

What is’t that ails young Harry Gill?

That evermore his teeth they chatter,

Chatter, chatter, chatter still!

Of waistcoats Harry has no lack,

Good duffle grey, and flannel fine;

He has a blanket on his back,

And coats enough to smother nine.

In March, December, and in July,

’Tis all the same with Harry Gill;

The neighbours tell, and tell you truly,

His teeth they chatter, chatter still.

At night, at morning, and at noon,

’Tis all the same with Harry Gill;

Beneath the sun, beneath the moon,

His teeth they chatter, chatter still!

Young Harry was a lusty drover,

And who so stout of limb as he?

His cheeks were red as ruddy clover;

His voice was like the voice of three.

Old Goody Blake was old and poor;

Ill fed she was, and thinly clad;

And any man who passed her door

Might see how poor a hut she had.

All day she spun in her poor dwelling:

And then her three hours’ work at night,

Alas! ’twas hardly worth the telling,

It would not pay for candle-light.

Remote from sheltered village-green,

On a hill’s northern side she dwelt,

Where from sea-blasts the hawthorns lean,

And hoary dews are slow to melt.

By the same fire to boil their pottage,

Two poor old Dames, as I have known,

Will often live in one small cottage;

But she, poor Woman! housed alone.

’Twas well enough, when summer came,

The long, warm, lightsome summer-day,

Then at her door the
canty
Dame

Would sit, as any linnet, gay.

But when the ice our streams did fetter,

Oh then how her old bones would shake!

You would have said, if you had met her,

’Twas a hard time for Goody Blake.

Her evenings then were dull and dead:

Sad case it was, as you may think,

For very cold to go to bed;

And then for cold not sleep a wink.

O joy for her! whene’er in winter

The winds at night had made a rout;

And scattered many a lusty splinter

And many a rotten bough about.

Yet never had she, well or sick,

As every man who knew her says,

A pile beforehand, turf or stick,

Enough to warm her for three days.

Now, when the frost was past enduring,

And made her poor old bones to ache,

Could any thing be more alluring

Than an old hedge to Goody Blake?

And, now and then, it must be said,

When her old bones were cold and chill,

She left her fire, or left her bed,

To seek the hedge of Harry Gill.

Now Harry he had long suspected

This trespass of old Goody Blake;

And vowed that she should be detected –

That he on her would vengeance take.

And oft from his warm fire he’d go,

And to the fields his road would take;

And there, at night, in frost and snow,

He watched to seize old Goody Blake.

And once, behind a rick of barley,

Thus looking out did Harry stand:

The moon was full and shining clearly,

And crisp with frost the stubble land.

– He hears a noise – he’s all awake –

Again? – on tip-toe down the hill

He softly creeps – ’tis Goody Blake;

She’s at the hedge of Harry Gill!

Right glad was he when he beheld her:

Stick after stick did Goody pull:

He stood behind a bush of elder,

Till she had filled her apron full.

When with her load she turned about,

The by-way back again to take;

He started forward, with a shout,

And sprang upon poor Goody Blake.

And fiercely by the arm he took her,

And by the arm he held her fast,

And fiercely by the arm he shook her,

And cried, ‘I’ve caught you then at last!’

Then Goody, who had nothing said,

Her bundle from her lap let fall;

And, kneeling on the sticks, she prayed

To God that is the judge of all.