Samuel Coleridge - The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Illustrated Edition)

That gallops away with such fury and force

On this dreary dull plate of black metal.

Our earth is no doubt made of excellent stuff,

But her pulses beat slower and slower.

The weather in Forty was cutting and rough,

And then, as Heaven knows, the glass stood low enough,

And now it is four degrees lower.

Here’s a Fly, a disconsolate creature, perhaps

A child of the field, or the grove,

And sorrow for him! this dull treacherous heat

Has seduc’d the poor fool from his winter retreat,

And he creeps to the edge of my stove.

Alas! how he fumbles about the domains

Which this comfortless oven environ,

He cannot find out in what track he must crawl

Now back to the tiles, and now back to the hall,

And now on the brink of the iron.

Stock-still there he stands like a traveller bemaz’d,

The best of his skill he has tried;

His feelers methinks I can see him put forth

To the East and the West, and the South and the North,

But he finds neither guide-post nor guide.

See! his spindles sink under him, foot, leg and thigh,

His eyesight and hearing are lost,

Between life and death his blood freezes and thaws,

And his two pretty pinions of blue dusky gauze

Are glued to his sides by the frost.

No Brother, no Friend has he near him, while I

Can draw warmth from the cheek of my Love,

As blest and as glad in this desolate gloom,

As if green summer grass were the floor of my room,

And woodbines were hanging above.

Yet, God is my witness, thou small helpless Thing,

Thy life I would gladly sustain

Till summer comes up from the South, and with crowds

Of thy brethren a march thou should’st sound through the clouds,

And back to the forests again.

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Up, Timothy, up with your Staff and away!

Not a soul in the village this morning will stay;

The Hare has just started from Hamilton’s grounds,

And Skiddaw is glad with the cry of the hounds.

— Of coats and of jackets both grey, scarlet, and green,

On the slopes of the pastures all colours were seen,

With their comely blue aprons and caps white as snow,

The girls on the hills made a holiday show.

The bason of box-wood, just six months before,

Had stood on the table at Timothy’s door,

A Coffin through Timothy’s threshold had pass’d,

One Child did it bear and that Child was his last.

Now fast up the dell came the noise and the fray,

The horse and the horn, and the hark! hark! away!

Old Timothy took up his Staff, and he shut

With a leisurely motion the door of his hut.

Perhaps to himself at that moment he said,

”The key I must take, for my Ellen is dead”

But of this in my ears not a word did he speak,

And he went to the chase with a tear on his cheek.

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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 roadside,

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