309
He seems ten birth-days younger, is green and is stout;
Twice as fast as before does his blood run about;
You would say that each hair of his beard was alive,
And his fingers are busy as bees in a hive.
For he's not like an Old Man that leisurely goes
About work that he knows in a track that he knows;
But often his mind is compelled to demur,
And you guess that the more then his body must stir.
In the throng of the Town like a Stranger is he,
Like one whose own Country's far over the sea,
And Nature, while through the great City he hies,
Full ten times a day takes his heart by surprize.
This gives him the fancy of one that is young,
More of soul in his face than of words on his tongue;
Like a Maiden of twenty he trembles and sighs,
And tears of fifteen have come into his eyes.
What's a tempest to him or the dry parching heats?
Yet he watches the clouds that pass over the streets;
With a look of such earnestness often will stand
You might think he'd twelve Reapers at work in the Strand.
