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 ought that ever owned 80
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

85

door,

This old Man creeps, the villagers in him

Behold a record which together binds

Past deeds and offices of charity,

90

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 carès.

95

Among the farms and solitary huts,
Hamlets and thinly-scattered villages,
Where'er the aged Beggar takes his rounds,

To acts of love; and habit does the work

100

The mild necessity of use compels

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, 105

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

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 116
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

121

125

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 130
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 135 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; 142 Go, and demand of him, if there be here

In this cold abstinence from evil deeds,

And these inevitable charities,

145

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 150
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,

155

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

160

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, 165
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 to his heart.

170

175

May never HOUSE, misnamed of INDUSTRY,
Make him a captive! -for that pent-up din, 180
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

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190

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!

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1798.

II.

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

5

Town; His staff is a sceptre-his grey hairs a crown; And his bright eyes look brighter, set off by

Of the unfaded rose that still blooms on his cheek.

'Mid the dews, in the sunshine of morn,-'mid

the joy

Of the fields, he collected that bloom, when a boy;

IO

That countenance there fashioned, which, 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 15 Of the silver-rimmed horn whence he dealt his

mild 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. 20

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

25

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.