Simon Lee The Old Huntsman

.  With an incident in which he was concerned     In 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.

S1.

First published in 1798, in Lyrical Ballads.

Written in the same year.

Wordsworth made very considerable changes in the original text; e.g. after line 4, in the first edition we read:

Of years he has upon his back,

No doubt, a burthen weighty;

He says he is three score and ten,

But others say he's eighty.

A long blue livery-coat has he,

That's fair behind, and fair before\;

Yet, meet him when you will, you

At once that he is poor.

The poem is based on an actual incident and a real person.25.

Cf.

Lycidas, 37.