Francis T. Palgrave, ed. (1824–1897). The Golden Treasury. 1875.
William Wordsworth CCXIX. Simon Lee, the Old HuntsmanI
Not far from pleasant Ivor Hall,
An old man dwells, a little man—
I’ve heard he once was tall.
Full five-and-thirty years he lived
A running huntsman merry;
And still the centre of his cheek
Is red as a ripe cherry.
And hill and valley rang with glee
When Echo bandied, round and round,
The halloo of Simon Lee.
In those proud days he little cared
For husbandry or tillage;
To blither tasks did Simon rouse
The sleepers of the village.
Could leave both man and horse behind;
And often, ere the chase was done,
He reel’d and was stone-blind.
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.
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.
His body, dwindled and awry,
Rests upon ankles swoln and thick;
His legs are thin and dry.
He has no son, he has no child;
His wife, an aged woman,
Lives with him, near the waterfall,
Upon the village common.
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 avails the land to them
Which he can till no longer?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Has oftener left me mourning.