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!

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!