Old Man Travelling

William Wordsworth · 1798

Catalog grade guidance: 6–8 — Brief encounter poem; quiet pathos.

21 content lines · 166 words · Est. recitation about 1 min 31 sec (approx.)

Public-domain text for reading and recitation practice. Source: Project Gutenberg #9622.Estimated time uses ~120 words/minute plus short pauses—not a contest rule.

OLD MAN TRAVELLING; ANIMAL TRANQUILLITY AND DECAY, A SKETCH.


                    The little hedge-row birds,
    That peck along the road, regard him not.
    He travels on, and in his face, his step,
    His gait, is one expression; every limb,
    His look and bending figure, all bespeak
    A man who does not move with pain, but moves
    With thought--He is insensibly subdued
    To settled quiet: he is one by whom
    All effort seems forgotten, one to whom
    Long patience has such mild composure given,
    That patience now doth seem a thing, of which
    He hath no need. He is by nature led
    To peace so perfect, that the young behold
    With envy, what the old man hardly feels.
    --I asked him whither he was bound, and what
    The object of his journey; he replied
    “Sir! I am going many miles to take
    “A last leave of my son, a mariner,
    “Who from a sea-fight has been brought to Falmouth,
    And there is dying in an hospital.”