Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Volume 2

THE OLD CUMBERLAND BEGGAR. A DESCRIPTION

The OLD CUMBERLAND BEGGAR, A DESCRIPTION

The class of Beggars to which the old man here described belongs, will probably soon be extinct. It consisted of poor, and, mostly, old and infirm persons, who confined themselves to a stated round in their neighbourhood, and had certain fixed days, on which, at different houses, they regularly received charity; sometimes in money, but mostly in provisions.

  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 scann'd them with a fix'd and serious look  Of idle computation. In the sun,  Upon the second step of that small pile,  Surrounded by those wild unpeopled hills,  He sate, and eat his food in solitude;  And ever, scatter'd 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 destin'd 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  Towards the aged Beggar turns 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 perchance  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 turn'd, 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,  Bowbent, his eyes for ever on the ground,  He plies his weary journey, seeing still,  And never knowing that he sees, some straw,  Some scatter'd leaf, or marks which, in one track,  The nails of cart or chariot wheel have left  Impress'd 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 have pass'd the door, will turn away  Weary of barking at him. Boys and girls,  The vacant and the busy, maids and youths,  And urchins newly breech'd 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, and wisdom, deem him not  A burthen 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 link'd. While thus he creeps  From door to door, the Villagers in him  Behold a record which together binds  Past deeds and offices of charity  Else unremember'd, 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  Of reason, yet prepares that after joy  Which reason cherishes. And thus the soul,  By that sweet taste of pleasure unpursu'd  Doth find itself insensibly dispos'd  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; minds like these,  In childhood, from this solitary being,  This helpless wanderer, have perchance receiv'd,  (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  Which overhangs his head from the green wall,  Feeds in the sunshine; the robust and young,  The prosperous and unthinking, they who live  Shelter'd, 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  Establish'd in the land where they abide  Are strict observers, and not negligent,  Meanwhile, in any tenderness of heart  Or act 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 press'd 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 tire and builds her hope in heav'n.  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,  Unblam'd, uninjur'd, 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 unletter'd 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 vallies, let his blood  Struggle with frosty air and winter snows,  And let the charter'd wind that sweeps the heath  Beat his grey locks against his wither'd 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 nor,  The pleasant melody of woodland birds.  Few are his pleasures; if his eyes, which now  Have been so long familiar with the earth,  No more behold 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 by the grassy bank  Of high-way side, and with the little birds  Share his chance-gather'd meal, and, finally,  As in the eye of Nature he has liv'd,  So in the eye of Nature let him die.

RURAL ARCHITECTURE

  There's George Fisher, Charles Fleming, and Reginald Shore,  Three rosy-cheek'd School-boys, the highest not more  Than the height of a Counsellor's bag;  To the top of Great How did it please them to climb,  and there they built up without mortar or lime  A Man on the peak of the crag.  They built him of stones gather'd up as they lay,  They built him and christen'd him all in one day,  An Urchin both vigorous and hale;  And so without scruple they call'd him Ralph Jones.  Now Ralph is renown'd for the length of his bones;  The Magog of Legberthwaite dale.  Just half a week after the Wind sallied forth,  And, in anger or merriment, out of the North  Coming on with a terrible pother,  From the peak of the crag blew the Giant away.  And what did these School-boys? – The very next day  They went and they built up another.  – Some little I've seen of blind boisterous works  In Paris and London, 'mong Christians or Turks,  Spirits busy to do and undo:  At remembrance whereof my blood sometimes will flag.  – Then, light-hearted Boys, to the top of the Crag!  And I'll build up a Giant with you.

Great How is a single and conspicuous hill, which rises towards the foot of Thirl-mere, on the western side of the beautiful dale of Legberthwaite, along the 'high road between Keswick' and Ambleside.

A POET'S EPITAPH

  Art thou a Statesman, in the van  Of public business train'd and bred,  – First learn to love one living man;  Then may'st thou think upon the dead.  A Lawyer art thou? – draw not nigh;  Go, carry to some other place  The hardness of thy coward eye,  The falshood of thy sallow face.  Art thou a man of purple cheer?  A rosy man, right plump to see?  Approach; yet Doctor, not too near:  This grave no cushion is for thee.  Art thou a man of gallant pride,  A Soldier, and no mail of chaff?  Welcome! – but lay thy sword aside,  And lean upon a Peasant's staff.  Physician art thou? One, all eyes,  Philosopher! a fingering slave,  One that would peep and botanize  Upon his mother's grave?  Wrapp'd closely in thy sensual fleece  O turn aside, and take, I pray,  That he below may rest in peace,  Thy pin-point of a soul away!  – A Moralist perchance appears;  Led, Heaven knows how! to this poor sod:  And He has neither eyes nor ears;  Himself his world, and his own God;  One to whose smooth-rubb'd soul can cling  Nor form nor feeling great nor small,  A reasoning, self-sufficing thing,  An intellectual All in All!  Shut close the door! press down the latch:  Sleep in thy intellectual crust,  Nor lose ten tickings of thy watch,  Near this unprofitable dust.  But who is He with modest looks,  And clad in homely russet brown?  He murmurs near the running brooks  A music sweeter than their own.  He is retired as noontide dew,  Or fountain in a noonday grove;  And you must love him, ere to you  He will seem worthy of your love.  The outward shews of sky and earth.  Of hill and valley he has view'd;  And impulses of deeper birth  Have come to him in solitude.  In common things that round us lie  Some random truths he can impart  The harvest of a quiet eye  That broods and sleeps on his own heart.  But he is weak, both man and boy,  Hath been an idler in the land;  Contented if he might enjoy  The things which others understand.  – Come hither in thy hour of strength,  Come, weak as is a breaking wave!  Here stretch thy body at full length  Or build thy house upon this grave. —

A CHARACTER,

In the antithetical Manner

  I marvel how Nature could ever find space  For the weight and the levity seen in his face:  There's thought and no thought, and there's paleness and bloom,  And bustle and sluggishness, pleasure and gloom.  There's weakness, and strength both redundant and vain;  Such strength, as if ever affliction and pain  Could pierce through a temper that's soft to disease,  Would be rational peace – a philosopher's ease.  There's indifference, alike when he fails and succeeds,  And attention full ten times as much as there needs,  Pride where there's no envy, there's so much of joy;  And mildness, and spirit both forward and coy.  There's freedom, and sometimes a diffident stare  Of shame scarcely seeming to know that she's there.  There's virtue, the title it surely may claim,  Yet wants, heaven knows what, to be worthy the name.  What a picture! 'tis drawn without nature or art,  – Yet the Man would at once run away with your heart,  And I for five centuries right gladly would be  Such an odd, such a kind happy creature as he.

A FRAGMENT

  Between two sister moorland rills  There is a spot that seems to lie  Sacred to flowrets of the hills,  And sacred to the sky.  And in this smooth and open dell  There is a tempest-stricken tree;  A corner stone by lightning cut,  The last stone of a cottage hut;  And in this dell you see  A thing no storm can e'er destroy,  The shadow of a Danish Boy.  In clouds above, the lark is heard,  He sings his blithest and his beet;    But in this lonesome nook the bird  Did never build his nest.  No beast, no bird hath here his home;  The bees borne on the breezy air  Pass high above those fragrant bells  To other flowers, to other dells.  Nor ever linger there.  The Danish Boy walks here alone:  The lovely dell is all his own.  A spirit of noon day is he,  He seems a Form of flesh and blood;  A piping Shepherd he might be,  A Herd-boy of the wood.  A regal vest of fur he wears,  In colour like a raven's wing;  It fears nor rain, nor wind, nor dew,  But in the storm 'tis fresh and blue  As budding pines in Spring;  His helmet has a vernal grace,  Fresh as the bloom upon his face.  A harp is from his shoulder slung;  He rests the harp upon his knee,  And there in a forgotten tongue  He warbles melody.  Of flocks and herds both far and near  He is the darling and the joy,  And often, when no cause appears,  The mountain ponies prick their ears,  They hear the Danish Boy,  While in the dell he sits alone  Beside the tree and corner-stone.  When near this blasted tree you pass,  Two sods are plainly to be seen  Close at its root, and each with grass  Is cover'd fresh and green.  Like turf upon a new-made grave  These two green sods together lie,  Nor heat, nor cold, nor rain, nor wind  Can these two sods together bind,  Nor sun, nor earth, nor sky,  But side by side the two are laid,  As if just sever'd by the spade.  There sits he: in his face you spy  No trace of a ferocious air,  Nor ever was a cloudless sky  So steady or so fair.  The lovely Danish Boy is blest  And happy in his flowery cove;  From bloody deeds his thoughts are far;  And yet he warbles songs of war;  They seem like songs of love,  For calm and gentle is his mien;  Like a dead Boy he is serene.

POEMS ON THE NAMING OF PLACES

ADVERTISEMENT

By Persons resident in the country and attached to rural objects, many places will be found unnamed or of unknown names, where little Incidents will have occurred, or feelings been experienced, which will have given to such places a private and peculiar interest. From a wish to give some sort of record to such Incidents or renew the gratification of such Feelings, Names have been given to Places by the Author and some of his Friends, and the following Poems written in consequence.

POEMS on the NAMING of PLACES

I

  It was an April Morning: fresh and clear  The Rivulet, delighting in its strength,  Ran with a young man's speed, and yet the voice  Of waters which the winter had supplied  Was soften'd down into a vernal tone.  The spirit of enjoyment and desire,  And hopes and wishes, from all living things  Went circling, like a multitude of sounds.  The budding groves appear'd as if in haste  To spur the steps of June; as if their shades  Of various green were hindrances that stood  Between them and their object: yet, meanwhile,  There was such deep contentment in the air  That every naked ash, and tardy tree  Yet leafless, seem'd as though the countenance  With which it look'd on this delightful day  Were native to the summer. – Up the brook  I roam'd in the confusion of my heart,  Alive to all things and forgetting all.  At length I to a sudden turning came  In this continuous glen, where down a rock  The stream, so ardent in its course before,  Sent forth such sallies of glad sound, that all  Which I till then had heard, appear'd the voice  Of common pleasure: beast and bird, the lamb,  The Shepherd's dog, the linnet and the thrush  Vied with this waterfall, and made a song  Which, while I listen'd, seem'd like the wild growth  Or like some natural produce of the air  That could not cease to be. Green leaves were here,  But 'twas the foliage of the rocks, the birch,  The yew, the holly, and the bright green thorn,  With hanging islands of resplendent furze:  And on a summit, distant a short space,  By any who should look beyond the dell,  A single mountain Cottage might be seen.  I gaz'd and gaz'd, and to myself I said,  "Our thoughts at least are ours; and this wild nook,  My EMMA, I will dedicate to thee."  – Soon did the spot become my other home,  My dwelling, and my out-of-doors abode.  And, of the Shepherds who have seen me there,  To whom I sometimes in our idle talk  Have told this fancy, two or three, perhaps,  Years after we are gone and in our graves,  When they have cause to speak of this wild place,  May call it by the name of EMMA'S DELL.

II

To JOANNA  Amid the smoke of cities did you pass  Your time of early youth, and there you learn'd,  From years of quiet industry, to love  The living Beings by your own fire-side,  With such a strong devotion, that your heart  Is slow towards the sympathies of them  Who look upon the hills with tenderness,  And make dear friendships with the streams and groves.  Yet we who are transgressors in this kind,  Dwelling retired in our simplicity  Among the woods and fields, we love you well,  Joanna! and I guess, since you have been  So distant from us now for two long years,  That you will gladly listen to discourse  However trivial, if you thence are taught  That they, with whom you once were happy, talk  Familiarly of you and of old times.  While I was seated, now some ten days past,  Beneath those lofty firs, that overtop  Their ancient neighbour, the old Steeple tower,  The Vicar from his gloomy house hard by  Came forth to greet me, and when he had ask'd,  "How fares Joanna, that wild-hearted Maid!  And when will she return to us?" he paus'd,  And after short exchange of village news,  He with grave looks demanded, for what cause,  Reviving obsolete Idolatry,  I like a Runic Priest, in characters  Of formidable size, had chisel'd out  Some uncouth name upon the native rock,  Above the Rotha, by the forest side.  – Now, by those dear immunities of heart  Engender'd betwixt malice and true love,  I was not both to be so catechiz'd,  And this was my reply. – "As it befel,  One summer morning we had walk'd abroad  At break of day, Joanna and myself.  – 'Twas that delightful season, when the broom,  Full flower'd, and visible on every steep,  Along the copses runs in veins of gold."  Our pathway led us on to Rotha's banks,  And when we came in front of that tall rock  Which looks towards the East, I there stopp'd short,  And trac'd the lofty barrier with my eye  From base to summit; such delight I found  To note in shrub and tree, in stone and flower,  That intermixture of delicious hues,  Along so vast a surface, all at once,  In one impression, by connecting force  Of their own beauty, imag'd in the heart.  – When I had gaz'd perhaps two minutes' space,  Joanna, looking in my eyes, beheld  That ravishment of mine, and laugh'd aloud.  The rock, like something starting from a sleep,  Took up the Lady's voice, and laugh'd again:  That ancient Woman seated on Helm-crag  Was ready with her cavern; Hammar-Scar,  And the tall Steep of Silver-How sent forth  A noise of laughter; southern Loughrigg heard,  And Fairfield answer'd with a mountain tone:  Helvellyn far into the clear blue sky  Carried the Lady's voice, – old Skiddaw blew  His speaking trumpet; – back out of the clouds  Of Glaramara southward came the voice;  And Kirkstone toss'd it from his misty head.  Now whether, (said I to our cordial Friend  Who in the hey-day of astonishment  Smil'd in my face) this were in simple truth  A work accomplish'd by the brotherhood  Of ancient mountains, or my ear was touch'd  With dreams and visionary impulses,  Is not for me to tell; but sure I am  That there was a loud uproar in the hills.  And, while we both were listening, to my side  The fair Joanna drew, is if she wish'd  To shelter from some object of her fear.  – And hence, long afterwards, when eighteen moons  Were wasted, as I chanc'd to walk alone  Beneath this rock, at sun-rise, on a calm  And silent morning, I sate down, and there,  In memory of affections old and true,  I chissel'd out in those rude characters  Joanna's name upon the living stone.  And I, and all who dwell by my fire-side  Have call'd the lovely rock, Joanna's Rock.

NOTE

In Cumberland and Westmoreland are several Inscriptions upon the native rock which from the wasting of Time and the rudeness of the Workmanship had been mistaken for Runic. They are without doubt Roman.

The Roths, mentioned in this poem, is the River which flowing through the Lakes of Grasmere and Rydole fells into Wyndermere. On Helm-Crag, that impressive single Mountain at the head of the Vale of Grasmere, is a Rock which from most points of view bears a striking resemblance to an Old Woman cowering. Close by this rock is one of those Fissures or Caverns, which in the language of the Country are called Dungeons. The other Mountains either immediately surround the Vale of Grasmere, or belong to the same Cluster.

III

  There is an Eminence, – of these our hills  The last that parleys with the setting sun.  We can behold it from our Orchard seat.  And, when at evening we pursue our walk  Along the public way, this Cliff, so high  Above us, and so distant in its height,  Is visible, and often seems to send  Its own deep quiet to restore our hearts.  The meteors make of it a favorite haunt:  The star of Jove, so beautiful and large  In the mid heav'ns, is never half so fair  As when he shines above it. 'Tis in truth  The loneliest place we have among the clouds.  And She who dwells with me, whom I have lov'd  With such communion, that no place on earth  Can ever be a solitude to me,  Hath said, this lonesome Peak shall bear my Name.

IV

  A narrow girdle of rough stones and crags,  A rude and natural causeway, interpos'd  Between the water and a winding slope  Of copse and thicket, leaves the eastern shore  Of Grasmere safe in its own privacy.  And there, myself and two beloved Friends,  One calm September morning, ere the mist  Had altogether yielded to the sun,  Saunter'd on this retir'd and difficult way.  – Ill suits the road with one in haste, but we  Play'd with our time; and, as we stroll'd along,  It was our occupation to observe  Such objects as the waves had toss'd ashore,  Feather, or leaf, or weed, or wither'd bough,  Each on the other heap'd along the line  Of the dry wreck. And in our vacant mood,  Not seldom did we stop to watch some tuft  Of dandelion seed or thistle's beard,  Which, seeming lifeless half, and half impell'd  By some internal feeling, skimm'd along  Close to the surface of the lake that lay  Asleep in a dead calm, ran closely on  Along the dead calm lake, now here, now there,  In all its sportive wanderings all the while  Making report of an invisible breeze  That was its wings, its chariot, and its horse,  Its very playmate, and its moving soul.  – And often, trifling with a privilege  Alike indulg'd to all, we paus'd, one now,  And now the other, to point out, perchance  To pluck, some flower or water-weed, too fair  Either to be divided from the place  On which it grew, or to be left alone  To its own beauty. Many such there are,  Fair ferns and flowers, and chiefly that tall plant  So stately, of the Queen Osmunda nam'd,  Plant lovelier in its own retir'd abode  On Grasmere's beach, than Naid by the side  Of Grecian brook, or Lady of the Mere  Sole-sitting by the shores of old Romance.  – So fared we that sweet morning: from the fields  Meanwhile, a noise was heard, the busy mirth  Of Reapers, Men and Women, Boys and Girls.  Delighted much to listen to those sounds,  And in the fashion which I have describ'd,  Feeding unthinking fancies, we advanc'd  Along the indented shore; when suddenly,  Through a thin veil of glittering haze, we saw  Before us on a point of jutting land  The tall and upright figure of a Man  Attir'd in peasant's garb, who stood alone  Angling beside the margin of the lake.  That way we turn'd our steps: nor was it long,  Ere making ready comments on the sight  Which then we saw, with one and the same voice  We all cried out, that he must be indeed  An idle man, who thus could lose a day  Of the mid harvest, when the labourer's hire  Is ample, and some little might be stor'd  Wherewith to chear him in the winter time.  Thus talking of that Peasant we approach'd  Close to the spot where with his rod and line  He stood alone; whereat he turn'd his head  To greet us – and we saw a man worn down  By sickness, gaunt and lean, with sunken cheeks  And wasted limbs, his legs so long and lean  That for my single self I look'd at them,  Forgetful of the body they sustain'd. —  Too weak to labour in the harvest field,  The man was using his best skill to gain  A pittance from the dead unfeeling lake  That knew not of his wants. I will not say  What thoughts immediately were ours, nor how  The happy idleness of that sweet morn,  With all its lovely images, was chang'd  To serious musing and to self-reproach.  Nor did we fail to see within ourselves  What need there is to be reserv'd in speech,  And temper all our thoughts with charity.  – Therefore, unwilling to forget that day,  My Friend, Myself, and She who then receiv'd  The same admonishment, have call'd the plate  By a memorial name, uncouth indeed  As e'er by Mariner was giv'n to Bay  Or Foreland on a new-discover'd coast,  And, POINT RASH-JUDGMENT is the Name it bears.