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SUB-FOOTNOTE ON THE VARIANT

[Sub-Footnote i:  This change was made by S. T. C.—­Ed.]

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THE OLD CUMBERLAND BEGGAR [A]

Composed 1798.—­Published 1800.

The class of Beggars to which the old man here described belongs, will probably soon be extinct.  It consisted of poor, and, mostly, old and infirm persons, who confined themselves to a stated round in their neighbourhood, and had certain fixed days, on which, at different houses, they regularly received charity; sometimes in money, but mostly in provisions.-W.  W. 1800.

[Observed, and with great benefit to my own heart, when I was a child.  Written at Racedown and Alfoxden in my twenty-third year. [B] The Political Economists were about that time beginning their war upon mendicity in all its forms, and by implication, if not directly, on alms-giving also.  This heartless process has been carried as far as it can go by the AMENDED Poor Law Bill, tho’ the inhumanity that prevails in this measure is somewhat disguised by the profession that one of its objects is to throw the poor upon the voluntary donations of their neighbours; that is, if rightly interpreted, to force them into a condition between relief in the Union Poor House and alms robbed of their Christian grace and spirit, as being forced rather from the benevolent than given by them; while the avaricious and selfish, and all, in fact, but the humane and charitable, are at liberty to keep all they possess from their distressed brethren.—­I.  F.]

Included among the “Poems referring to the Period of Old Age.”—­Ed.

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THE POEM

  I saw an aged Beggar in my walk;
  And he was seated, by the highway side,
  On a low structure of rude masonry
  Built at the foot of a huge hill, that they
  Who lead their horses down the steep rough road 5
  May thence remount at ease.  The aged Man
  Had placed his staff across the broad smooth stone
  That overlays the pile; and, from a bag
  All white with flour, the dole of village dames,
  He drew his scraps and fragments, one by one; 10
  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 [1] his food in solitude:  15
  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, 20
  Approached within the length of half his staff.