Upon the Lonely Moor

• • I met an aged, aged man
  • Upon the lonely moor:
  • I knew I was a gentleman,
  • And he was but a boor.
  • So I stopped and roughly questioned him,
  • “Come, tell me how you live!”
  • But his words impressed my ear no more
  • Than if it were a sieve.
• • He said, “I look for soap-bubbles,
  • That lie among the wheat,
  • And bake them into mutton-pies,
  • And sell them in the street.
  • I sell them unto men”, he said,
  • “Who sail on stormy seas;
  • And that’s the way I get my bread--
  • A trifle, if you please.”
• • But I was thinking of a way
  • To multiply by ten,
  • And always, in the answer, get
  • The question back again.
  • I did not hear a word he said,
  • But kicked that old man calm,
  • And said, “Come, tell me how you live!”
  • And pinched him in the arm.
• • His accents mild took up the tale:
  • He said, “I go my ways,
  • And when I find a mountain-rill,
  • I set it in a blaze.
  • And thence they make a stuff they call
  • Rowland’s Macassar Oil;
  • But fourpence-halfpenny is all
  • They give me for my toil.”
• • But I was thinking of a plan
  • To paint one’s gaiters green,
  • So much the colour of the grass
  • That they could ne’er be seen.
  • I gave his ear a sudden box,
  • And questioned him again,
  • And tweaked his grey and reverend locks,
  • And put him into pain.
• • He said, “I hunt for haddocks’ eyes
  • Among the heather bright,
  • And work them into waistcoat-buttons
  • In the silent night.
  • And these I do not sell for gold,
  • Or coin of silver-mine,
  • But for a copper-halfpenny,
  • And that will purchase nine.
• • “I sometimes dig for buttered rolls,
  • Or set limed twigs for crabs;
  • I sometimes search the flowery knolls
  • For wheels of hansom cabs.
  • And that’s the way” (he gave a wink)
  • “I get my living here,
  • And very gladly will I drink
  • Your Honour’s health in beer.”
• • I heard him then, for I had just
  • Completed my design
  • To keep the Menai bridge from rust
  • By boiling it in wine.
  • I duly thanked him, ere I went,
  • For all his stories queer,
  • But chiefly for his kind intent
  • To drink my health in beer.
• • And now if e’er by chance I put
  • My fingers into glue,
  • Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot
  • Into a left-hand shoe;
  • Or if a statement I aver
  • Of which I am not sure,
  • I think of that strange wanderer
  • Upon the lonely moor.

If you enjoy this, you’ll also enjoy “I’ll tell thee everything I can” from chapter 8 of Through the Looking Glass or Wordsworth’s Resolution and Independence.