Page:Lyrical ballads, Volume 2, Wordsworth, 1800.djvu/101

93 The Traveller would hang his wet clothes on a chair

Let them smoke, let them burn, not a straw would he care,

For the Prodigal Son, Joseph's Dream and his Sheaves,

Oh what would they be to my tale of two Thieves!

Little Dan is unbreech'd, he is three birth-days old,

His Grandsire that age more than thirty times told,

There's ninety good seasons of fair and foul weather

Between them, and both go a-stealing together.

With chips is the Carpenter strewing his floor?

Is a cart-load of peats at an old Woman's door?

Old Daniel his hand to the treasure will slide,

And his Grandson's as busy at work by his side.

Old Daniel begins, he stops short and his eye

Through the lost look of dotage is cunning and sly.

'Tis a look which at this time is hardly his own,

But tells a plain tale of the days that are flown.