Page:Poems by William Wordsworth (1815) Volume 2.djvu/306

298 He drew his scraps and fragments, one by one;

And scanned them with a fixed and serious look

Of idle computation. In the sun,

Upon the second step of that small pile,

Surrounded by those wild unpeopled hills,

He sat, and ate his food in solitude:

And ever, scattered 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 destined 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

Side-long—and half-reverted. She who tends