Page:Poems by William Wordsworth (1815) Volume 2.djvu/129

121 His hunting feats have him bereft

Of his right eye, as you may see:

And then, what limbs those feats have left

To poor old Simon Lee!

He has no son, he has no child,

His Wife, an aged woman,

Lives with him, near the waterfall,

Upon the village Common.

Old Ruth works out of doors with him,

And does what Simon cannot do;

For she, not over stout of limb,

Is stouter of the two.

And, though you with your utmost skill

From labour could not wean them,

Alas! 'tis very little, all

Which they can do between them.

Beside their moss-grown hut of clay,

Not twenty paces from the door,

A scrap of land they have, but they

Are poorest of the poor.

This scrap of land he from the heath

Enclosed when he was stronger;

But what avails the land to them,

Which they can till no longer?