The Cripple

A brook beneath the hill-side flowsAmid the downs, whose chalky sweepA scant though tender herbage grows,Cropped close by scattered flocks of sheep.And there a group of huts is seenDotted along a village green.

Yet, buildings of a statelier lookThat poor sequestered valley grace:An inn beside the village brook;A church beside the burial-place.Save at the park, the trees are few;Still the old graveyard has its yew.

Beyond the park, the ring-dove’s haunt,Red bricks insult the smokeless sky:There stands the workhouse, bare and gaunt,Like the drear soul of poverty,And frowns upon a mossy fen,Where willows crouch like agéd men.

All life surrounds the roadside inn,The home of welcome and good cheer,Where barmaid scores the gill of ginAnd oft-repeated pot of beer:Unlike the fashion of the town—To drink and fling the money down.

The wife, with eggs and milk for sale,Wrapt in the coat of her good man,Stops there and takes her drop of aleWhile waiting for her empty can,And, nodding at the landlord’s sport,Keeps for the last her smart retort.

The goodman, always on his mare,Stops with familiar nod and wink,And bids the landlord with him shareHis amber draught of foamy drink;With chuckling joke concludes his say,And laughs when out of hearing’s way.

There with his team the carter stays,The water-trough his horses find;Worn out himself, he little says—No fun has he to leave behind.Dull to the merry toper’s call,His team he follows to their stall.

The squire, addicted not to chat,But seldom draws the rein or speaks;Seeing the landlord touch his hat,Into a quiet trot he breaks;Though at election, oft he stopsTo praise the children and the crops.

Between the horse-trough and the doorA widow’s son was wont to stand.He was a cripple, crutched and poor,Yet always ready with a hand,Pleased when on trifling errands sent,With little recompense content.

So oft a copper coin the boyWould earn, that helped to buy him bread,Too glad to get a light employ:The parish all his mother’s dread.Hard had she worked to earn him foodThrough all her weary widowhood.

More did that mother love her sonThan had he been the fairest born;He was her pride to look upon,Though shrunk of limb and feature worn:May be she loved him all the moreFor that his legs were crookt and sore.

As a wrecked vessel on the sand,The cripple to his mother clung:Close to the tub he took his standWhile she the linen washed and wrung;And when she hung it out to dryThe cripple still was standing by.

When she went out to char, he tookHis fife, to play some simple snatchBefore the inn hard by the brook,While for the traveller keeping watch,Against the horse’s head to stand,Or hold its bridle in his hand.

Sometimes the squire his penny droppedUpon the road for him to clutch,Which, as it rolled, the cripple stopped,Striking it nimbly with his crutch.The groom, with leathern belt and pad,E’en found a copper for the lad.

The farmer’s wife her hand would dipDown her deep pocket with a sigh;Some halfpence in his hand would slip,When there was no observer nigh;Or give him apples for his lunch,That he loved leisurely to munch.

But for the farmer, what he made,At market table he would spend,And boys who used not plough or spadeHad got the parish for their friend;He paid his poor rates to the day,So let the boy ask parish-pay.

Yet would the teamster feel his fob,The little cripple’s heart to cheer,Himself of penny pieces rob,That he begrudged to spend in beer;His boy, too, might be sick or sore,So gave he of his thrifty store.

A sheep-worn walk along the brookThe cripple loved, for there the gushOf water thralled him as it shookThe ragged roots of the green rush,Which with its triple flowers of pinkStood ripe for gathering at the brink.

The heather bristles round the knoll,Where inlaid moss and leaflets blend:’Tis there he sits and ends his stroll,His crutch beside him as his friend,And looks upon the other bank,Where blue forget-me-not grows rank;

Where purple loosestrife paints the sedge;—Where bryony and yellow bine,Locked in blush-bramble, climb the hedge,And white convolvulus enshrine.Nestled in leaves, they all appearEach other’s flowers to nurse and rear.

There mused he like a child of yore—By Nature’s simple teachings led;The cog and wheel of human loreNot yet were stirring in his head;The Shaper of his destinyHe felt was smiling from the sky.

There with soft notes his fife he fills,A mere tin plaything from the mart,But his thin fingers as it thrills,To that poor toy a grace impart,While it obeys his lips’ control,And is a crutch unto his soul.

At church he longed his fife to try,Where oboe gave its doleful note,Where fiddle scraped harsh melody,Where bass the rustic vitals smote.Such old-day music was in vogue,And psalms were sung in village brogue.

His cheerful ways gave many causeFor wonder; such ill-founded joyTo others’ mirth would give a pause:His soul seemed lent him for a toy,Though on his infant face was ageTo mark him for life’s latter stage.

Dead is his crutch on moping days—’Tis so they call his sickly fits,When by his side his crutch he lays,And in the chimney-corner sits,Hobbling in spirit near the yewThat in the village churchyard grew.

Ah! it befell at harvest-time,—Such are the ways of Providence,—That the poor widow in her primeWas fever-struck, and hurried hence;Then did he wish indeed to lieBetween her arms and with her die.

Who shall the cripple’s woes beguile?Who earn the bread his mouth to feed?Who greet him with a mother’s smile?Who tend him in his utter need?Who lead him to the sanded floor?Who put his crutch behind the door?

Who set him in his wadded chair,And after supper say his grace?Who to invite a loving airHis fife upon the table place?Who, as he plays, her eyes shall liftIn wonder at a cripple’s gift?

Who ask him all the news that chanced—Of farmer’s wife in coat and hat,Of squire who to the city pranced—To draw him out in lively chat?This flood of love, now but a surfLeft on a nameless mound of turf.

Some it made sigh, and some made talk,To see the guardian of the poorCall for the boy to take a walk,And lead him to the workhouse door:With lifted hands and boding lookThey watched him cross the village brook.