|
Simon Lee: The Old HuntsmanIn the sweet shire of Cardigan, Not far from pleasant Ivor-hall, An old Man dwells, a little man,— 'Tis said he once was tall. For five-and-thirty years he lived A running huntsman merry; And still the centre of his cheek Is red as a ripe cherry. No man like him the horn could sound, 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. He all the country could outrun, Could leave both man and horse behind; And often, ere the chase was done, He reeled, 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! But, oh the heavy change!—bereft 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. And he is lean and he is sick; His body, dwindled and awry, Rests upon ankles swoln and thick; His legs are thin and dry. One prop he has, and only one, His wife, an aged woman, Lives with him, near the waterfall, Upon the village Common. Beside their moss-grown hut of clay, 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 to them avails the land Which he can till no longer? Oft, working by her Husband's side, 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. Few months of life has he in store 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. O Reader! had you in your mind 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. One summer-day I chanced to see This old Man doing all he could To unearth the root of an old tree, A stump of rotten wood. The mattock tottered in his hand; So vain was his endeavour, That at the root of the old tree He might have worked for ever. "You're overtasked, good Simon Lee, Give me your tool," to him I said; And at the word right gladly he Received my proffered aid. I struck, and with a single blow The tangled root I severed, At which the poor old Man so long And vainly had endeavoured. The tears into his eyes were brought, And thanks and praises seemed 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 Hath oftener left me mourning.
1. What we 'expect' from regular ballads.
ballad, a *FOLK SONG or orally transmitted poem telling in a direct and dramatic manner some popular story usually derived from a tragic incident in local history or legend. The story is told simply, impersonally, and often with vivid dialogue.
2. Wordsworthian "Sympathy"
A few lines from "Old Cumberland Beggar"
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 To rid the world of nuisances; ye proud, Heart-swoln, while in your pride ye contemplate Your talents, power, and wisdom, deem him not A burthen of the earth. ’Tis Nature’s law That none, the meanest of created things, Of forms created the most vile and brute, The dullest or most noxious, should exist Divorced from good, a spirit and pulse of good, A life and soul to every mode of being Inseparably link’d. While thus he creeps From door to door, the Villagers in him Behold a record which together binds Past deeds and offices of charity Else unremember’d, 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, The mild necessity of use compels To acts of love; and habit does the work Of reason, yet prepares that after joy Which reason cherishes. And thus the soul, By that sweet taste of pleasure unpursu’d Doth find itself insensibly dispos’d To virtue and true goodness. Some there are, By their good works exalted, lofty minds And meditative, authors of delight 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 receiv’d, (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, 110 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 A silent monitor, which on their minds Must needs impress a transitory thought Of self-congratulation, to the heart Of each recalling his peculiar boons, His charters and exemptions; and perchance, Though he to no one give the fortitude 120 And circumspection needful to preserve His present blessings, and to husband up The respite of the season, he, at least, And ’tis no vulgar service, makes them felt. (ll. 67-124)
3. Wordsworthian "Mourning"
A few lines from "The Ruined Cottage"(Book I of The Excursion)
"I see around me here Things which you cannot see: we die, my Friend, Nor we alone, but that which each man loved And prized in his peculiar nook of earth Dies with him, or is changed; and very soon Even of the good is no memorial left. --The Poets, in their elegies and songs Lamenting the departed, call the groves, They call upon the hills and streams, to mourn, And senseless rocks; nor idly; for they speak, In these their invocations, with a voice Obedient to the strong creative power Of human passion. Sympathies there are More tranquil, yet perhaps of kindred birth, That steal upon the meditative mind, And grow with thought. (ll.469-484)
 
|
Related Bianries