t While here I stand, not only with the sense Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts For future years. And so I dare to hope, Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides Flying from something that he dreads, than one The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, nor any interest Unborrowed from the eye. That time is past, And all its aching joys are now no more Abundant recompense. For I have learned Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And mountains; and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world Of eye, and ear, both what they half create,2 And what perceive; well pleased to recognise Nor perchance, If I were not thus taught, should I the more Suffer my genial spirits to decay: For thou art with me here upon the banks The heart that loved her; 't is her privilege, Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then, If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief, Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance If I should be where I no more can hear Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams With warmer love oh! with far deeper zeal Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, THE OLD CUMBERLAND BEGGAR 1798 1800 Observed, and with great benefit to my own heart, when I was a child: written at Racedown and Alfoxden in my twentythird year. The political economists were about that time beginning their war upon mendicity in all its forms, and by implication, if not directly, on alms-giving also. This heartless process has been carried as far as it can go by the AMENDED poor-law bill, though the inhumanity that prevails in this measure is somewhat disguised by the profession that one of its objects is to throw the poor upon the voluntary donations of their neighbours; that is, if rightly interpreted, to force them into a condition between relief in the Union poorhouse, and alms robbed of their Christian grace and spirit, as being forced rather from the benevolent than given by them; while the avaricious and selfish, and all in fact but the humane and charitable, are at liberty to keep all they possess from their distressed brethren. 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 alms, sometimes in money, but mostly in provisions. I SAW an aged Beggar in my walk; And he was seated by the highway side, |