In look and motion, that the cottage curs, But deem not this Man useless.-Statesmen! ye 'Who are so restless in your wisdom, ye Who have a broom still ready in your hands A life and soul to every mode of being Behold a record which together binds Else unremembered, and so keeps alive The kindly mood in hearts which lapse of years, And that half-wisdom half-experience gives, Make slow to feel, and by sure steps resign To selfishness and cold oblivious cares. Among the farms and solitary huts, Hamlets and thinly-scattered villages, Where'er the aged Beggar takes his rounds, To acts of love; and habit does the work Doth find itself insensibly disposed To virtue and true goodness. Some there are, By their good works exalted, lofty minds And happiness, which to the end of time Will live, and spread, and kindle; minds like these, In childhood, from this solitary Being, This helpless Wanderer, have perchance received (A thing more precious far than all that books Or the solicitudes of love can do!) That first mild touch of sympathy and thought, In which they found their kindred with a world Where want and sorrow were. The easy Man Who sits at his own door, and, like the pear Which overhangs his head from the green wall, Feeds in the sunshine; the robust and young, The prosperous and unthinking, they who live Sheltered, and flourish in a little grove Of their own kindred, all behold in him His charters and exemptions; and, perchance, Yet further. -Many, I believe, there are Who live a life of virtuous decency, any tenderness of heart Meanwhile, in In this cold abstinence from evil deeds, And these inevitable charities, Wherewith to satisfy the human soul? When they can know and feel that they have been Of some small blessings, have been kind to such As needed kindness, for this single cause, That we have all of us one human heart. -Such pleasure is to one kind Being known; My Neighbour, when with punctual care, each week |