Wordsworth by William Wordsworth Page B

horse the rein,
    Watches the aged Beggar with 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 thus warned
    The old Man does not change his course, the boy
    Turns with less noisy wheels to the roadside,
    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 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