In Dorothy Wordsworth's journal, the following reference to this poem occurs :-" Feb. 16, 1802.-Mr Graham said he wished William had been with him the other day. He was riding in a post-chaise, and he heard a strange cry that he could not understand. The sound continued, and he called to the chaise-driver to stop. It was a little girl that was crying as if her heart would burst. She had got up behind the chaise, and her cloak had been caught by the wheel, and was jammed in, and it hung there. She was crying after it, poor thing. Mr Graham took her into the chaise, and her cloak was released from the wheel, but the child's misery did not cease, for her cloak was torn to rags. It had been a miserable cloak before; but she had no other, and it was the greatest sorrow that could befall her. Her name was Alice Fell. She had no parents, and belonged to the next town. At the next town Mr G. left money to buy her a new cloak." "Friday (March 12). In the evening after tea William wrote Alice Fell." "Saturday Morning (13th March).-William finished Alice Fell, and then wrote the Poem of the Beggar Woman. . . ."--Ed.

BEGGARS.

Comp. March 13th and 14th, 1802.

Pub. 1807.

[Written at Town-end, Grasmere. Me, and described to me by my sister, near the quarry at the head of Rydal Lake, a place still a chosen resort of vagrants travelling with their families.]

SHE had a tall man's height or more;

Her face from summer's noontide heat
No bonnet shaded, but she wore

A mantle, to her very feet

Descending with a graceful flow,

And on her head a cap as white as new-fallen snow.1

1 1846.

She had a tall man's height, or more;
No bonnet screened her from the heat,

A long drab-coloured cloak she wore,

A mantle reaching to her feet:

What other dress she had I could not know;

Only she wore a cap that was as white as snow. 1507.

Nor claimed she service from the hood

Of a blue mantle, to her feet

Her skin was of Egyptian brown:
Haughty, as if her eye had seen
Its own light to a distance thrown,
She towered, fit person for a Queen 1

To lead those ancient Amazonian files;2

Or ruling Bandit's wife among the Grecian isles.

Advancing, forth she stretched her hand

And begged an alms with doleful plea

Depending with a graceful flow;

Only she wore a cap pure as unsullied snow.

Before my eyes a Wanderer stood;

1

1827.

Her face from summer's noonday heat

No bonnet shaded, nor the hood

Of that blue cloak which to her feet

Depended with a graceful flow;

Only she wore a cap as white as new-fallen snow.

1832.

Only she wore a cap as white as new-fallen snow.

C.

She had a tall man's height or more;

A garment for her stature meet,

And for a vagrant life she wore

A mantle reaching to her feet.

Nor hood, nor bonnet screened her lofty brow,

Only she wore a cap as white as new-fallen snow.

C.

2

1936.

1807.

To head those ancient Amazonian files;

That ceased not; on our English land
Such woes, I knew, could never be; 1

And yet a boon I gave her, for the creature.

Was beautiful to see-a weed of glorious feature.

I left her, and pursued my way;
And soon before me did espy

A pair of little Boys at play,
Chasing a crimson butterfly;

The taller followed with his hat in hand,

Wreathed round with yellow flowers the gayest of the land.2

The other wore a rimless crown

With leaves of laurel stuck about;

And, while both followed up and down,3

Each whooping with a merry shout,

1807.

Grief after grief, on English land

Such woes I knew could never be.

With yellow flowers around, as with a golden band. c.

3

1827.

And they both followed up and down,

1307.

In their fraternal features I could trace

Unquestionable lines of that wild Suppliant's face.1

Yet they, so blithe of heart, seemed fit

For finest tasks of earth or air:

Wings let them have, and they might flit

Precursors to Aurora's car,

Scattering fresh flowers; though happier far, I ween,

To hunt their fluttering game o'er rock and level green.2

They dart across my path-but lo,3

Each ready with a plaintive whine!
Said I," not half an hour ago

Your Mother has had alms of mine."

That cannot be," one answered-" she is dead:"

I looked reproof-they saw-but neither hung his head.

"She has been dead, Sir, many a day."

Hush, boys! you're telling me a lie; 5 It was your Mother as I say!"

And, in the twinkling of an eye,

Two brothers seemed they, eight and ten years old:
And like that woman's face as gold is like to gold. 1807.
This stanza added in 1827.

"Nay, but I gave her pence, and she will buy you bread.”

'Come! Come!" cried one, and without more ado, Off to some other play the joyous Vagrants flew! 1

1 1827.

1807.

Off to some other play they both together flew.
the thoughtless vagrants flew. C.

The following is Dorothy Wordsworth's reference to this poem in her journal :-"Saturday (March 13, 1802).-W. wrote the poem of the Beggar Woman, taken from a woman whom I had seen in May (now nearly two years ago), when John and he were at Gallow Hill. I sat with him at intervals all the morning, and took down his stanzas." The earlier entry, under date Tuesday, May 27, 1800, is as follows:-" A very tall woman, tall much beyond the measure of tall women, called at the door. She had on a very long brown cloak, and a very white cap, without bonnet. Her face was brown, but it had plainly once been fair. She led a little barefooted child about two years old by the hand, and said her husband, who was a tinker, was gone before with the other children. I gave her a piece of bread. Afterwards, on my road to Ambleside, beside the bridge at Rydal, I saw her husband sitting at the roadside, his two asses standing beside him, and the two young children at play upon the grass. The man did not beg. I passed on, and about a quarter of a mile farther I saw two boys before me, one about ten, the other about eight years old, at play, chasing a butterfly. They were wild figures, not very ragged, but without shoes and stockings. The hat of the elder was wreathed round with yellow flowers; the younger, whose hat was only a rimless crown, had stuck it round with laurel leaves. They continued at play till I drew very near, and then they addressed me with the begging cant and the whining voice of sorrow. I said, 'I served your mother this morning' (the boys were so like the woman who had called at our door that I could not be mistaken). 'O,' says the elder, 'you could not serve my mother, for she's dead, and my father's in at the next town; he's a potter.' I persisted in my assertion, and that I would give them nothing. Says the elder, 'Come, let's away,' and away they flew like lightning. They had, however, sauntered so long in their road that they did not reach Ambleside before me, and I saw them go up to Mathew Harrison's house with their wallet upon the elder's shoulder, and creeping with a beggar's complaining foot. On my return through Ambleside I met, in the street, the mother driving her asses, in the two panniers of one of which were the two little children, whom she was chiding and threatening with a wand with which she used to drive on her asses, while the little things hung in wantonness over the pannier's edge. The woman had told me in the morning that she was of Scotland, which her accent fully proved, and that she had lived (I think at Wigtown); that they could not keep a house, and so they travelled." If this extract from Miss Wordsworth's journal is compared with her brother's poem Beggars, it will amply justify the remark of the Bishop of Lincoln.