Poem of the Month: July

Anthony Esolen, a well-respected Catholic literature professor and translator (Dante's Divine Comedy being among his works) wrote an article analyzing Wordsworth's poem "Old Cumberland Beggar" in light of what it has to say on the dignity of a human life.  The culture of life is so threatened now that infancy and old age have no meaning - there was little way Wordsworth could have foreseen the widespread use of abortion and euthanasia, yes his poem applies well to the current age.

Read Esolen's article here after reading the poem below.  It's quite a profound reflection and a good read.  Thanks to Fr. Z for drawing my attention to it - Esolen spoke at Christendom last year and we used his translation of Dante last semester in literature class.

Old Cumberland Begger

    William Wordsworth

I SAW an aged Beggar in my walk;

And he was seated, by the highway side,

On a low structure of rude masonry

Built at the foot of a huge hill, that they

Who lead their horses down the steep rough road

May thence remount at ease. The aged Man

Had placed his staff across the broad smooth stone

That overlays the pile; and, from a bag

All white with flour, the dole of village dames,

He drew his scraps and fragments, one by one;

And scanned them with a fixed and serious look

Of idle computation. In the sun,

Upon the second step of that small pile,

Surrounded by those wild unpeopled hills,

He sat, and ate his food in solitude:

And ever, scattered from his palsied hand,

That, still attempting to prevent the waste,

Was baffled still, the crumbs in little showers

Fell on the ground; and the small mountain birds,

Not venturing yet to peck their destined meal,

Approached within the length of half his staff.

Him from my childhood have I known; and then

He was so old, he seems not older now;

He travels on, a solitary Man,

So helpless in appearance, that for him

The sauntering Horseman throws not with a slack

And careless hand his alms upon the ground,

But stops,--that he may safely lodge the coin

Within the old Man's hat; nor quits him so,

But still, when he has given his horse the rein,

Watches the aged Beggar with a look

Sidelong, and half-reverted. She who tends

The toll-gate, when in summer at her door

She turns her wheel, if on the road she sees

The aged beggar coming, quits her work,

And lifts the latch for him that he may pass.

The post-boy, when his rattling wheels o'ertake

The aged Beggar in the woody lane,

Shouts to him from behind; and if, thus warned,

The old man does not change his course, the boy

Turns with less noisy wheels to the roadside,

And passes gently by, without a curse

Upon his lips, or anger at his heart.

He travels on, a solitary Man;

His age has no companion. On the ground

His eyes are turned, and, as he moves along

'They' move along the ground; and, evermore,

Instead of common and habitual sight

Of fields with rural works, of hill and dale,

And the blue sky, one little span of earth

Is all his prospect. Thus, from day to day,

Bow-bent, his eyes for ever on the ground,

He plies his weary journey; seeing still,

And seldom knowing that he sees, some straw,

Some scattered leaf, or marks which, in one track,

The nails of cart or chariot-wheel have left

Impressed on the white road,--in the same line,

At distance still the same. Poor Traveller!

His staff trails with him; scarcely do his feet

Disturb the summer dust; he is so still

In look and motion, that the cottage curs,

Ere he has passed the door, will turn away,

Weary of barking at him. Boys and girls,

The vacant and the busy, maids and youths,

And urchins newly breeched--all pass him by:

Him even the slow-paced waggon leaves behind.

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, or wisdom, deem him not

A burthen of the earth! 'Tis Nature's law

That none, the meanest of created things,

Or 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 linked. Then be assured

That least of all can aught--that ever owned

The heaven-regarding eye and front sublime

Which man is born to--sink, howe'er depressed,

So low as to be scorned without a sin;

Without offence to God cast out of view;

Like the dry remnant of a garden-flower

Whose seeds are shed, or as an implement

Worn out and worthless. While from door to door,

This old Man creeps, the villagers in him

Behold a record which together binds

Past deeds and offices of charity,

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,

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 unpursued,

Doth find herself insensibly disposed

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: even such minds

In childhood, from this solitary Being,

Or from like wanderer, haply have 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

That 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

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

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.

Yet further.----Many, I believe, there are

Who live a life of virtuous decency,

Men who can hear the Decalogue and feel

No self-reproach; who of the moral law

Established in the land where they abide

Are strict observers; and not negligent

In acts of love to those with whom they dwell,

Their kindred, and the children of their blood.

Praise be to such, and to their slumbers peace!

--But of the poor man ask, the abject poor;

Go, and demand of him, if there be here

In this cold abstinence from evil deeds,

And these inevitable charities,

Wherewith to satisfy the human soul?

No--man is dear to man; the poorest poor

Long for some moments in a weary life

When they can know and feel that they have been,

Themselves, the fathers and the dealers-out

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

Duly as Friday comes, though pressed herself

By her own wants, she from her store of meal

Takes one unsparing handful for the scrip

Of this old Mendicant, and, from her door

Returning with exhilarated heart,

Sits by her fire, and builds her hope in heaven.

Then let him pass, a blessing on his head!

And while in that vast solitude to which

The tide of things has borne him, he appears

To breathe and live but for himself alone,

Unblamed, uninjured, let him bear about

The good which the benignant law of Heaven

Has hung around him: and, while life is his,

Still let him prompt the unlettered villagers

To tender offices and pensive thoughts.

--Then let him pass, a blessing on his head!

And, long as he can wander, let him breathe

The freshness of the valleys; let his blood

Struggle with frosty air and winter snows;

And let the chartered wind that sweeps the heath

Beat his grey locks against his withered face.

Reverence the hope whose vital anxiousness

Gives the last human interest to his heart.

May never house, misnamed of industry,

Make him a captive!--for that pent-up din,

Those life-consuming sounds that clog the air,

Be his the natural silence of old age!

Let him be free of mountain solitudes;

And have around him, whether heard or not,

The pleasant melody of woodland birds.

Few are his pleasures: if his eyes have now

Been doomed so long to settle upon earth

That not without some effort they behold

The countenance of the horizontal sun,

Rising or setting, let the light at least

Find a free entrance to their languid orbs.

And let him, 'where' and 'when' he will, sit down

Beneath the trees, or on a grassy bank

Of highway side, and with the little birds

Share his chance-gathered meal; and, finally,

As in the eye of Nature he has lived,

So in the eye of Nature let him die!

Comments