Page:Poems by William Wordsworth (1815) Volume 2.djvu/38

30 My course I stopped as soon as I espied

The Old Man in that naked wilderness:

Close by a Pond, upon the further side,

He stood alone: a minute's space I guess

I watched him, he continuing motionless:

To the Pool's further margin then I drew;

He being all the while before me full in view.

As a huge Stone is sometimes seen to lie

Couched on the bald top of an eminence;

Wonder to all who do the same espy

By what means it could thither come, and whence;

So that it seems a thing endued with sense:

Like a Sea-beast crawled forth, which on a shelf

Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself.

Such seemed this Man, not all alive nor dead,

Nor all asleep; in his extreme old age:

His body was bent double, feet and head

Coming together in their pilgrimage;

As if some dire constraint of pain, or rage

Of sickness felt by him in times long past,

A more than human weight upon his frame had cast.