No curious shell, rare plant, or brilliant spar,
Enticed our traveller from his house so far;
But all the reason by himself assign’d
For so much rambling, was a restless mind;
As on, from place to place, without intent,
Without reflection, Robin Dingley went. 
   Not thus by nature:- never man was found
Less prone to wander from his parish bound: 
Claudian’s Old Man, to whom all scenes were new,
Save those where he and where his apples grew,
Resembled Robin, who around would look,
And his horizon for the earth’s mistook. 
   To this poor swain a keen Attorney came; —
“I give thee joy, good fellow! on thy name;
The rich old Dingley’s dead;—­no child has he,
Nor wife, nor will; his all is left for thee: 
To be his fortune’s heir thy claim is good;
Thou hast the name, and we will prove the blood.” 
The claim was made; ’twas tried,—­it would not stand;
They proved the blood but were refused the land. 
Assured of wealth, this man of simple heart
To every friend had predisposed a part;
His wife had hopes indulged of various kind;
The three Miss Dingleys had their school assign’d,
Masters were sought for what they each required,
And books were bought and harpsichords were hired;
So high was hope:- the failure touched his brain,
And Robin never was himself again;
Yet he no wrath, no angry wish express’d,
But tried, in vain, to labour or to rest;
Then cast his bundle on his back, and went
He knew not whither, nor for what intent. 
   Years fled;—­of Robin all remembrance past,
When home he wandered in his rags at last: 
A sailor’s jacket on his limbs was thrown,
A sailor’s story he had made his own;
Had suffer’d battles, prisons, tempests, storms,
Encountering death in all its ugliest forms: 
His cheeks were haggard, hollow was his eye,
Where madness lurk’d, conceal’d in misery;
Want, and th’ ungentle world, had taught a part,
And prompted cunning to that simple heart: 
“He now bethought him, he would roam no more
But live at home and labour as before.” 
   Here clothed and fed, no sooner he began
To round and redden, than away he ran;
His wife was dead, their children past his aid,
So, unmolested, from his home he stray’d: 
Six years elapsed, when, worn with want and pain. 
Came Robin, wrapt in all his rags again: 
We chide, we pity;—­placed among our poor,
He fed again, and was a man once more. 
   As when a gaunt and hungry fox is found,
Entrapp’d alive in some rich hunter’s ground;
Fed for the field, although each day’s a feast,
fatten you may, but never tame the beast;
A house protects him, savoury viands sustain:-
But loose his neck and off he goes again: 
So stole our Vagrant from his warm retreat,
To rove a prowler and be deemed a cheat. 
   Hard was his fare; for him at length we saw
In cart convey’d and laid supine on straw.