All trades, as need [19] was, did old Adam assume,—­ Served as stable-boy, errand-boy, porter, and groom; 50 But nature is gracious, necessity kind, And, in spite of the shame that may lurk in his mind, [20] [21] He seems ten birthdays younger, is green and is stout; [22] Twice as fast as before does his blood run about; You would [23] say that each hair of his beard was alive, 55 And his fingers are busy as bees in a hive.

  For he’s not like an Old Man that leisurely goes
  About work that he knows, [24] in a track that he knows;
  But often his mind is compelled to demur,
  And you guess that the more then his body must stir. 60

  In the throng of the town like a stranger is he,
  Like one whose own country’s far over the sea;
  And Nature, while through the great city he hies,
  Full ten times a day takes his heart by surprise.

  This gives him the fancy of one that is young, 65
  More of soul in his face than of words on [25] his tongue;
  Like a maiden of twenty he trembles and sighs,
  And tears of fifteen will come [26] into his eyes.

  What’s a tempest to him, or the dry parching heats? 
  Yet he watches the clouds that pass over the streets; 70
  With a look of such earnestness often will stand, [27]
  You might think he’d twelve reapers at work in the Strand.

Where proud Covent-garden, in desolate hours Of snow and hoar-frost, spreads her fruits and her flowers, Old Adam will smile at the pains that have made 75 Poor winter look fine in such strange masquerade. [28] [29] ’Mid coaches and chariots, a waggon of straw, Like a magnet, the heart of old Adam can draw; With a thousand soft pictures his memory will teem, And his hearing is touched with the sounds of a dream. 80

  Up the Haymarket hill he oft whistles his way,
  Thrusts his hands in a waggon, and smells at the hay; [30]
  He thinks of the fields he so often hath mown,
  And is happy as if the rich freight were his own. [31]

  But chiefly to Smithfield he loves to repair,—­85
  If you pass by at morning, you’ll meet with him there. 
  The breath of the cows you may see him inhale,
  And his heart all the while is in Tilsbury Vale.

  Now farewell, old Adam! when low [32] thou art laid,
  May one blade of grass spring over [33] thy head; 90
  And I hope that thy grave, wheresoever it be,
  Will hear the wind sigh through the leaves of a tree.

With this picture, which was taken from real life, compare the imaginative one of ‘The Reverie of Poor Susan’ [vol. i. p. 226]; and see (to make up the deficiencies of this class) ’The Excursion, passim’.—­W.  W. 1837.

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VARIANTS ON THE TEXT