The Old Cumberland Beggar
by William Wordsworth

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 scanned them with a fixed and serious look 
Of idle computation. In the sun, 
Upon the second step of that small pile, 
Surrounded by those wild unpeopled hills, 
He sat, and ate his food in solitude: 
And ever, scattered 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 destined 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 throws not with a slack 
And 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, 
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 burthen of the earth! 'Tis Nature's law 
That none, the meanest of created things, 
Or 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 0 
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!