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Old Man Travelling
Project Gutenberg #9622
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Source: Project Gutenberg #9622 Source URL: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9622 Public domain basis: Lyrical Ballads, 1798 London edition (PG #9622). US public domain. Coverage: Complete individual poem extracted from parent edition lyrical-ballads at bytes 113051-114020; checksum 061840ec5420062ad64e08df19263451a4cd43120129080ba4bf350b1801fc61.
# Old Man Travelling
Old Man Travelling
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.”