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, 70 Heart-swoln, while in your pride ye contemplate Your talents, power, or [10] 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, 75 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 80 The heaven-regarding eye and front sublime [C] 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 85 Whose seeds are shed, or as an implement Worn out and worthless. [11] While from door to door This old Man creeps, [12] the villagers in him Behold a record which together binds Past deeds and offices of charity, 90 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. 95 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 100 Of reason; yet prepares that after-joy Which reason cherishes. And thus the soul, By that sweet taste of pleasure unpursued Doth find herself [13] insensibly disposed To virtue and true goodness. 105 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 [14] 110 In childhood, from this solitary Being, Or from like wanderer, haply have received [15] (A thing more precious far than all that books Or the solicitudes of love can do!) That first mild touch of sympathy and thought, 115 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 [16] overhangs his head from the green wall, Feeds in the sunshine; the robust and young, 120 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 125 Of self-congratulation, to the heart