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THE OLD CUMBERLAND BEGGAR.

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 pick 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,

His age has no companion.

Thus, from day to day,

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

He plies his weary journey.

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 have 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.

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But deem not this man useless.
While thus he creeps

From door to door, the villagers in him
Behold a record which together binds

Past deeds and offices of charity.

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,

THE OLD CUMBERLAND BEGGAR.

By that sweet taste of pleasure unpursued,
Doth find itself insensibly disposed

To virtue and true goodness.

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My neighbour, when with punctual care, each week
Duly as Friday comes, though pressed herself
By her own wants, she from her chest 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 led 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

THE OLD CUMBERLAND BEGGAR.

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.

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.

And let him, where and when he will, sit down
Beneath the trees, or by the 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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