1800.]

[Variant 5:

1800.

... and, evermore,
Instead of Nature's fair variety,]
Her ample scope of hill and dale, of clouds
And the blue sky, the same short span of earth
Is all his prospect. When the little birds
Flit over him, if their quick shadows strike
Across his path, he does not lift his head
Like one whose thoughts have been unsettled. So
Brow-bent, his eyes for ever ... MS.]

[Variant 6:

1827.

And never ... 1800.]

[Variant 7:

1800.

... his slow footsteps scarce MS.]

[Variant 8:

1800.

... that the miller's dog
Is tired of barking at him. MS.]

[Variant 9:

1837.

... have ... 1800.]

[Variant 10:

1837.

... and ... 1800.]

[Variant 11: The lines from "Then be assured" 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 title of this poem is 'Description of a
Beggar', and in the editions 1800 to 1820 the title was 'The Old
Cumberland 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