[Footnote A:  In ‘The Prelude’ the version of 1827 is adopted for the most part.—­Ed.]

[Footnote B:  See ‘Graduati Cantabrigienses’ (1850), by Joseph Romily, the Registrar to the University 1832-1862.—­Ed.]

* * * * *

THE TWO THIEVES; OR, THE LAST STAGE OF AVARICE

Composed 1798.—­Published 1800

[This is described from the life, as I was in the habit of observing when a boy at Hawkshead School.  Daniel was more than eighty years older than myself when he was daily, thus occupied, under my notice.  No books have so early taught me to think of the changes to which human life is subject, and while looking at him I could not but say to myself—­we may, one of us, I or the happiest of my playmates, live to become still more the object of pity, than this old man, this half-doating pilferer.—­I.F.]

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

  O now that the genius of Bewick [A] were mine,
  And the skill which he learned on the banks of the Tyne,
  Then the Muses might deal with me just as they chose,
  For I’d take my last leave both of verse and of prose. [1]

  What feats would I work with my magical hand! 5
  Book-learning and books should be banished the land:  [2]
  And, for hunger and thirst and such troublesome calls,
  Every ale-house should then have a feast on its walls.

  The traveller would hang his wet clothes on a chair;
  Let them smoke, let them burn, not a straw.  Would he care! 10
  For the Prodigal Son, Joseph’s Dream and his sheaves,
  Oh, what would they be to my tale of two Thieves?

  The One, yet unbreeched, is not three birthdays old,[3]
  His Grandsire that age more than thirty times told;
  There are ninety good seasons of fair and foul weather 15
  Between them, and both go a-pilfering [4] together.

  With chips is the carpenter strewing his floor? 
  Is a cart-load of turf [5] at an old woman’s door? 
  Old Daniel his hand to the treasure will slide! 
  And his Grandson’s as busy at work by his side. 20

  Old Daniel begins; he stops short—­and his eye,
  Through the lost look of dotage, is cunning and sly: 
  ’Tis a look which at this time is hardly his own,
  But tells a plain tale of the days that are flown.

  He once [6] had a heart which was moved by the wires 25
  Of manifold pleasures and many desires: 
  And what if he cherished his purse?  ’Twas no more
  Than treading a path trod by thousands before.

  ’Twas a path trod by thousands; but Daniel is one
  Who went something farther than others have gone, [7] 30
  And now with old Daniel you see how it fares;
  You see to what end he has brought his grey hairs.