D MAN'S CARES, AND NEAR"

Composed 1807.--Published 1807

----"gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name."

[Written at Coleorton. This old man's name was Mitchell. He was, in all
his ways and conversation, a great curiosity, both individually and as a
representative of past times. His chief employment was keeping watch at
night by pacing round the house, at that time building, to keep off
depredators. He has often told me gravely of having seen the Seven
Whistlers, and the Hounds as here described. Among the groves of
Coleorton, where I became familiar with the habits and notions of old
Mitchell, there was also a labourer of whom, I regret, I had no personal
knowledge; for, more than forty years after, when he was become an old
man, I learned that while I was composing verses, which I usually did
aloud, he took much pleasure, unknown to me, in following my steps that
he might catch the words I uttered; and, what is not a little
remarkable, several lines caught in this way kept their place in his
memory. My volumes have lately been given to him by my informant, and
surely he must have been gratified to meet in print his old
acquaintances.--I. F.]

In 1815 this sonnet was one of the "Poems belonging to the Period of Old
Age"; in 1820 it was transferred to the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."--ED.

Though narrow be that old Man's cares, and near,
The poor old Man is greater than he seems:
For he hath waking empire, wide as dreams;
An ample sovereignty of eye and ear.
Rich are his walks with supernatural cheer; 5
The region of his inner spirit teems
With vital sounds and monitory gleams
Of high astonishment and pleasing fear.
He the seven birds hath seen, that never part,
Seen the SEVEN WHISTLERS in their nightly rounds, 10
And counted them: and oftentimes will start--
For overhead are sweeping GABRIEL'S HOUNDS[A]
Doomed, with their impious Lord, the flying Hart
To chase for ever, on aerial grounds!

To bring all the poems referring to Coleorton together, so far as
possible, this and the next sonnet are transferred from their places in
the chronological list, and placed beside the Coleorton "Inscriptions."

I am indebted to Mr. William Kelly of Leicester for the following note
on the Leicestershire superstition of the Seven Whistlers.

"There is an old superstition, which it is not easy to get to the
bott