Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/112

86 The Housewife, tempted by such slender gains

As might from that occasion be distilled,

Opened, as she before had done for me,

Her doors to admit this homeless Pensioner;

The portion gave of coarse but wholesome fare

Which appetite required—a blind dull nook

Such as she had—the kennel of his rest!

This, in itself not ill, would yet have been

Ill borne in earlier life; but his was now

The still contentedness of seventy years.

Calm did he sit beneath the wide-spread tree

Of his old age; and yet less calm and meek,

Winningly meek or venerably calm,

Than slow and torpid; paying in this wise

A penalty, if penalty it were,

For spendthrift feats, excesses of his prime.

I loved the Old Man, for I pitied him!

A task it was, I own, to hold discourse

With One so slow in gathering up his thoughts,

But he was a cheap pleasure to my eyes;

Mild, inoffensive, ready in his way,

And useful to his utmost power: and there

Our Housewife knew full well what she possess'd!