Of many Beings, he had wondrous skill To blend with knowledge of the years to come, Human, or such as lie beyond the grave. * * * * * So was He framed; and such his course of life Who now, with no appendage but a staff, 435 The prized memorial of relinquished toils, Upon that cottage-bench reposed his limbs, Screened from the sun. Supine the Wanderer lay, His eyes as if in drowsiness half shut, The shadows of the breezy elms above 440 Dappling his face. He had not heard the sound Of my approaching steps, and in the shade Unnoticed did I stand some minutes' space.[57] At length I hailed him, seeing that his hat Was moist with water-drops, as if the brim 445 Had newly scooped a running stream. He rose, And ere our lively greeting into peace Had settled, "'Tis," said I,[58] "a burning day: My lips are parched with thirst, but you, it seems,[59] Have somewhere found relief." He, at the word, 450 Pointing towards a sweet-briar, bade me climb The fence where that aspiring shrub looked out Upon the public way.[60] It was a plot Of garden ground run wild, its matted weeds Marked with the steps of those, whom, as they passed, The gooseberry trees that shot in long lank slips, 456 Or currants, hanging from their leafless stems, In scanty strings, had tempted to o'erleap[61] The broken wall. I looked around, and there, Where two tall hedge-rows of thick alder boughs 460 Joined in a cold damp nook, espied a well Shrouded with willow-flowers and plumy fern. My thirst I slaked, and, from the cheerless spot Withdrawing, straightway to the shade returned Where sate the old Man on the cottage-bench; 465 And, while, beside him, with uncovered head, I yet was standing, freely to respire, And cool my temples in the fanning air, Thus did he speak. "I see around me here Things which you cannot see: we die, my Friend, 470 Nor we alone, but that which each man loved And prized in his peculiar nook of earth Dies with him, or is changed; and very soon Even of the good is no memorial left.[AT] --The Poets, in their elegies and songs 475 Lamenting the departed, call the groves, They call upon the hills and streams to mourn,[AU] And senseless rocks; nor idly; for they speak, In these their invocations, with a voice Obedient to the strong creative power 480 Of human passion. Sympathies there are More tranquil, yet perhaps of kindred birth, That steal upon the meditative mind, And grow with thought. Beside yon spring I stood, And eyed its waters till we seemed to feel 485 One sadness, they and I. For them a bond