Page:Poems by William Wordsworth (1815) Volume 2.djvu/313

305 Be his the natural silence of old age!

Let him be free of mountain solitudes;

And have around him, whether heard or not,

The pleasant melody of woodland birds.

Few are his pleasures: if his eyes have now

Been doomed so long to settle on the earth

That not without some effort they behold

The countenance of the horizontal sun,

Rising or setting, let the light at least

Find a free entrance to their languid orbs.

And let him, where and when he will, sit down

Beneath the trees, or by the grassy bank

Of high-way side, and with the little birds

Share his chance-gathered meal; and, finally,

As in the eye of Nature he has lived,

So in the eye of Nature let him die.