Not ignorant was the Youth that still no few Of his adventurous countrymen were led By perseverance in this track of life
To competence and ease:-to him it offered 1 Attractions manifold;-and this he chose. -His Parents on the enterprise bestowed 2 Their farewell benediction, but with hearts Foreboding evil. From his native hills
He wandered far; much did he see of men,* Their manners, their enjoyments, and pursuits, Their passions and their feelings; chiefly those Essential and eternal in the heart,
That, 'mid the simpler forms of rural life, Exist more simple in their elements,
And speak a plainer language. In the woods, A lone Enthusiast, and among the fields, Itinerant in this labour, he had passed The better portion of his time; and there Spontaneously had his affections thriven Amid the bounties of the year, the peace And liberty of nature; there he kept In solitude and solitary thought
His mind in a just equipoise of love.
He asked his Mother's blessing; and, with tears Thanking his second Father, asked from him Paternal blessings. The good Pair bestowed
See Wordsworth's note, p. 395.
+ Compare the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, 1800, Vol. IV. p. 278-9.-Ed.
Serene it was, unclouded by the cares Of ordinary life; unvexed, unwarped By partial bondage. In his steady course, No piteous revolutions had he felt,
No wild varieties of joy and grief. Unoccupied by sorrow of its own,
His heart lay open; and, by nature tuned And constant disposition of his thoughts To sympathy with man, he was alive To all that was enjoyed where'er he went, And all that was endured; for, in himself Happy, and quiet in his cheerfulness, He had no painful pressure from without That made him turn aside from wretchedness With coward fears. He could afford to suffer With those whom he saw suffer. Hence it came That in our best experience he was rich, And in the wisdom of our daily life. For hence, minutely, in his various rounds, He had observed the progress and decay
Of many minds, of minds and bodies too;
The history of many families;
How they had prospered; how they were o'erthrown
By passion or mischance, or such misrule
Among the unthinking masters of the earth.
As makes the nations groan.
He followed till provision for his wants
Had been obtained;-the Wanderer then resolved 1 To pass the remnant of his days, untasked
Chosen in youth, through manhood he pursued, Till due provision for his modest wants Had been obtained ;—and, thereupon, resolved
With needless services, from hardship free. His calling laid aside, he lived at ease: But still he loved to pace the public roads
And the wild paths; and, by the summer's warmth Invited, often would he leave his home
And journey far, revisiting the scenes That to his memory were most endeared.1 -Vigorous in health, of hopeful spirits, undamped 2 By worldly-mindedness or anxious care; Observant, studious, thoughtful, and refreshed By knowledge gathered up from day to day; Thus had he lived a long and innocent life.
The Scottish Church, both on himself and those With whom from childhood he grew up, had held The strong hand of her purity; and still Had watched him with an unrelenting eye. This he remembered in his riper age With gratitude, and reverential thoughts. But by the native vigour of his mind, By his habitual wanderings out of doors, By loneliness, and goodness, and kind works, Whate'er, in docile childhood or in youth, He had imbibed of fear or darker thought Was melted all away; so true was this, That sometimes his religion seemed to me Self-taught, as of a dreamer in the woods; Who to the model of his own pure heart
Shaped his belief,1 as grace divine inspired, And human reason 2 dictated with awe. -And surely never did there live on earth A man of kindlier nature. The rough sports And teasing ways of children vexed not him; Indulgent listener3 was he to the tongue Of garrulous age; nor did the sick man's tale, To his fraternal sympathy addressed,
Obtain reluctant hearing.
Such as might suit a rustic Sire, prepared
For Sabbath duties; yet he was a man
Whom no one could have passed without remark. Active and nervous was his gait; his limbs And his whole figure breathed intelligence. Time had compressed the freshness of his cheek Into a narrower circle of deep red,
But had not tamed his eye;* that, under brows Shaggy and gray, had meanings which it brought From years of youth; † which, like a Being made
Nor could he bid them from his presence, tired
With questions and importunate demands:
"Full five-and-thirty years he lived
A running huntsman merry; And still the centre of his cheek Is red as a ripe cherry."
Also the description of Margaret, p. 57 of this volume.-ED. + Compare the Leech Gatherer, st. xiii.—ED.
Of many Beings, he had wondrous skill
To blend with knowledge of the years to come, Human, or such as lie beyond the grave.
So was He framed; and such his course of life, Who now, with no appendage but a staff, The prized memorial of relinquished toils, Upon that cottage-bench reposed his limbs, Screened from the sun.
Supine the Wanderer lay,
His eyes as if in drowsiness half shut, The shadows of the breezy elms above Dappling his face.
He had not heard the sound Of my approaching steps, and in the shade Unnoticed did I stand some minutes' space.1 At length I hailed him, seeing that his hat Was moist with water-drops, as if the brim Had newly scooped a running stream. And ere our lively greeting into peace
Had settled, ""Tis," said I, " a burning day:
My lips are parched with thirst, but you, it seems,3 Have somewhere found relief." He, at the word, Pointing towards a sweet-briar, bade me climb
The fence where that aspiring shrub looked out Upon the public way. It was a plot
He had not heard my steps As I approached; and near him did I stand Unnotic'd in the shade, some minutes' space.
And ere the pleasant greeting that ensued
Pointing towards a sweet-briar, bade me climb
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