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An hundred airy harps! And she hath watched
Many a Nightingale perch giddily,

On blos❜my twig still swinging from the breeze,
And to that motion tune his wanton song
Like tipsy joy that reels with tossing head.

Farewell, O Warbler! till to-morrow eve,
And you, my friends! farewell, a short farewell!
We have been loitering long and pleasantly,
And now for our dear homes.--That strain again?
Full fain it would delay me! My dear babe,
Who, capable of no articulate sound,
Mars all things with his imitative lisp,
How he would place his hand beside his ear,
His little hand, the small forefinger up,

And bid us listen! And I deem it wise

To make him Nature's play-mate. He knows well
The evening-star; and once, when he awoke
In most distressful mood, (some inward pain

Had made up that strange thing, an infant's dream)
I hurried with him to our orchard-plot,

And he beheld the Moon, and, hushed at once,
Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently,
While his fair eyes, that swam with undropt tears,
Did glitter.in the yellow moon-beam! Well!-
It is a father's tale: But if that Heaven

Should give me life, his childhood shall grow up
Familiar with these songs, that with the night
He may associate joy! Once more farewell,
Sweet Nightingale! Once more, my friends, farewell.

WORDSWORTH

THE OLD CUMBERLAND BEGGA

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,
De 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-traveller does not throw
With 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 road-side,
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 fee1
Disturb the summer dust; he is so still
In look and motion, and the cottage curs,
Ere he have passed the door, will
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 wagon leaves behind.

rn away,

But deem not this Man useless, Statesmen
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, and 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. While thus he creeps
From door to door, the villagers in him

years,

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
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 itself 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,

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