Читать книгу The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Illustrated Edition) - Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Страница 81

O reader! had you in your mind

Such stores as silent thought can bring,

O gentle reader! you would find

A tale in every thing.

What more I have to say is short,

I hope you’ll kindly take it;

It is no tale; but should you think,

Perhaps a tale you’ll make it.

One summer-day I chanced to see

This old man doing all he could

About the root of an old tree,

A stump of rotten wood.

The mattock totter’d in his hand;

So vain was his endeavour

That at the root of the old tree

He might have worked for ever.

”You’ve overtasked, good Simon Lee,

Give me your tool” to him I said;

And at the word right gladly he

Received my proffer’d aid.

I struck, and with a single blow

The tangled root I sever’d,

At which the poor old man so long

And vainly had endeavoured.

The tears into his eyes were brought,

And thanks and praises seemed to run

So fast out of his heart, I thought

They never would have done.

— I’ve heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds

With coldness still returning.

Alas! the gratitude of men

Has oftner left me mourning.