Page:Lyrical ballads, Volume 1, Wordsworth, 1800.djvu/142

90 O reader! had you in your mind

Such stores as silent thought can bring,

O gentle reader! you would find

A tale in every thing.

What more I have to say is short,

I hope you'll kindly take it;

It is no tale; but should you think,

Perhaps a tale you'll make it.

One summer-day I chanced to see

This old man doing all he could

About the root of an old tree,

A stump of rotten wood.

The mattock totter'd in his hand;

So vain was his endeavour

That at the root of the old tree

He might have worked for ever.