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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

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