And still there's something in the world.
At which his heart rejoices;

For when the chiming hounds are out,

He dearly loves their voices.

But oh the heavy change!-bereft

Of health, strength, friends, and kindred, see!

Old Simon to the world is left

In liveried poverty:

His master's dead, and no one now

Dwells in the Hall of Ivor;

Men, dogs, and horses, all are dead;
He is the sole survivor.

And he is lean and he is sick,
His body, dwindled and awry,

Rests upon ankles swoln and thick;

His legs are thin and dry.

One prop he has, the only one,

His wife, an aged woman,

Lives with him, near the waterfall,
Upon the village common.

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 to him avails the land
Which he can till no longer?

Oft, working by her husband's side,
Ruth does what Simon cannot do;

For she, with scanty cause for pride,
Is stouter of the two.

And, though you with your utmost skill
From labour could not wean them,

"Tis little, very little, all

That they can do between them.

Few months of life has he in store

As he to you will tell,

For still, the more he works, the more Do his weak ankles swell.

My gentle Reader, I perceive

How patiently you've waited

And now I fear that you expect
Some tale will be related.

O Reader! had you in your mind
Such stores as silent thought can bring,
O gentle Reader! you would find
A tale in every thing.

What more I have to say is short,
And you must kindly take it;
It is no tale; but, should you think,
Perhaps a tale you'll make it.

One summer-day I chanced to see
This old Man doing all he could
To unearth the root of an old tree.
A stump of rotten wood.
The mattock totter'd in his hand;
So vain was his endeavour
That at the root of the old tree

He might have work'd for ever.

"You're overtask'd, good Simon Lee,
Give me your tool," to him I said;
And at the word right gladly he
Received my proffer'd aid.

I struck, and with a single blow
The tangled root I sever'd

At which the poor old man so long
And vainly had endeavour'd.

The tears into his eyes were brought,
And thanks and praises seem'd to run
So fast out of his heart, I thought

They never would have done.

-I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds
With coldness still returning;

Alas! the gratitude of men

Hath oftener left me mourning.

William Wordsworth

264

THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES

I have had playmates, I have had companions,
In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have been laughing, I have been carousing, Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies; All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I loved a Love once, fairest among women :
Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her-
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man;
Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly;
Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.

Ghost-like, I paced round the haunts of my childhood, Earth seem'd a desert I was bound to traverse, Seeking to find the old familiar faces.

Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother,
Why wert not thou born in my father's dwelling?
So might we talk of the old familiar faces,

How some they have died, and some they have left me,
And some are taken from me; all are departed;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

265*

Charles Lamb

THE JOURNEY ONWARDS

As slow our ship her foamy track
Against the wind was cleaving,
Her trembling pennant still look'd back
To that dear isle 'twas leaving.
So loth we part from all we love,
From all the links that bind us;
So turn our hearts, as on we rove,
To those we've left behind us!

When, round the bowl, of vanish'd years
We talk with joyous seeming-

With smiles that might as well be tears
So faint, so sad their beaming;

While memory brings us back again
Each early tie that twined us,
Oh, sweet's the cup that circles then
To those we've left behind us!

And when, in other climes, we meet
Some isle or vale enchanting,
Where all looks flowery, wild, and sweet,
And nought but love is wanting;
We think how great had been our bliss
If Heaven had but assign'd us
To live and die in scenes like this,

With some we've left behind us!

As travellers oft look back at eve
When eastward darkly going,
To gaze upon that light they leave
Still faint behind them glowing,-
So, when the close of pleasure's day
To gloom hath near consign'd us,
We turn to catch one fading ray
Of joy that's left behind us.

Thomas Moore

266

YOUTH AND AGE

There's not a joy the world can give like that it

takes away

When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's

dull decay;

'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone,

which fades so fast,

But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth

itself be past.