SIMOHE OLD HUNTSMAN, WITH AN I IN WHICH HE WAS ED.
In the sweet shire of Cardigan,
Not far from pleasant Ivor-hall,
An old man dwells, a little man,
Ive heard he once was tall.
Of years he has upon his back,
No doubt, a burthey;
He says he is three score and ten,
But others say hes eighty.
A long blue livery-coat has he,
Thats fair behind, and fair before;
Yet, meet him where you will, you see
At ohat he is poor.
Full ?ve and twenty years he lived
A running huntsman merry;
And, though he has but one eye left,
His cheek is like a cherry.
No man like him the horn could sound.
And no man was so full of glee;
To say the least, four ties round
Had heard of Simon Lee;
His masters dead, and no one now
Dwells in the hall of Ivor;
Men, dogs, and horses, all are dead;
He is the sole survivor.
His huntis have him bereft
Of his right eye, as you may see:
And then, what limbs those feats have left
To poor old Simon Lee!
He has no son, he has no child,
His wife, an aged woman,
Lives with him, he waterfall,
Upon the village on.
And he is lean and he is sick,
His little bodys half awry
His ahey are swoln and thick
His legs are thin and dry.
When he was youtle knew
Of husbandry or tillage;
And now hes forced to work, though weak,
--The weakest in the village.
He all the try could outrun,
Could leave both man and horse behind;
And oftehe race was done,
He reeled and was stone-blind.
And still theres something in the world
At which his heart rejoices;
For when the chiming hounds are out,
He dearly loves their voices!
Old Ruth works out of doors with him,
And does what Simon ot do;
For she, not over stout of limb,
Is stouter of the two.
And though you with your utmost skill
From labour could not wean them,
Alas! tis very little, all
Which they do between them.
Beside their moss-grown hut of clay,
Not twenty paces from the door,
A scrap of land they have, but they
Are poorest of the poor.
This scrap of land he from the heath
Enclosed when he was stronger;
But what avails the land to them,
Which they till no longer?
Few months of life has he in store,
As he to you will tell,
For still, the more he works, the more
His poor old ancles swell.
My gentle reader, I perceive
How patiently youve waited,
And Im afraid that you expect
Some tale will be related.
O reader! had you in your mind
Such stores as silent thought bring,
O gentle reader! you would ?nd
A tale ihing.
What more I have to say is short,
I hope youll kindly take it;
It is no tale; but should you think,
Perhaps a tale youll make it.
One summer-day I ced to see
This old man doing all he could
About the root of an old tree,
A stump of rotten wood.
The mattock totterd in his hand;
So vain was his endeavour
That at the root of the old tree
He might have worked for ever.
"Youre overtasked, good Simon Lee,
Give me your tool" to him I said;
And at the wht gladly he
Received my profferd aid.
I struck, and with a single blow
The tangled root I severd