[Variant 11: The lines from "Then be a.s.sured" to "worthless" were added in the edition of 1837.]

[Variant 12:

1837.

... While thus he creeps From door to door, ... 1800.]

[Variant 13:

1832.

... itself ... 1800.]

[Variant 14:

1827.

... ; minds like these, 1800.]

[Variant 15:

1827.

This helpless wanderer, have perchance receiv'd, 1800.]

[Variant 16:

1827.

Which ... 1800.]

[Variant 17:

1827.

... and not negligent, Meanwhile, in any tenderness of heart Or act of love ... 1800.]

[Variant 18:

1827.

... chest ... 1800.]

[Variant 19:

1827.

... led ... 1800.]

[Variant 20:

1837.

... if his eyes, which now Have been so long familiar with the earth, No more behold the horizontal sun 1800.

... if his eyes have now Been doomed so long to settle on the earth That not without some effort they behold The countenance of the horizontal sun, 1815.]

[Variant 21:

1837.

... or by the ... 1800.]

FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A: In an early MS. the t.i.tle of this poem is 'Description of a Beggar', and in the editions 1800 to 1820 the t.i.tle was 'The Old c.u.mberland Beggar, a Description'.--Ed.]

[Footnote B: Wordsworth went to Racedown in 1795, when he was twenty-five years of age; and was at Alfoxden in his twenty-eighth year.--Ed.]

[Footnote C: Compare Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' I. 84:

Os homini sublime dedit, coelumque videre Jussit et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus.

Ed.]

[Footnote D: With this poem compare Frederick William Faber's "Hymn,"

which he called 'The Old Labourer', beginning:

What end doth he fulfil!

He seems without a will.

Ed.]