he _ease_ [16] of his heart.

To London--a sad emigration I ween--45
With his grey hairs he went from the brook [17] and the green;
And there, with small wealth but his legs and his hands,
As lonely he stood as [18] a crow on the sands.

All trades, as need [19] was, did old Adam assume,--
Served as stable-boy, errand-boy, porter, and groom; 50
But nature is gracious, necessity kind,
And, in spite of the shame that may lurk in his mind, [20]
[21]
He seems ten birthdays younger, is green and is stout; [22]
Twice as fast as before does his blood run about;
You would [23] say that each hair of his beard was alive, 55
And his fingers are busy as bees in a hive.

For he's not like an Old Man that leisurely goes
About work that he knows, [24] in a track that he knows;
But often his mind is compelled to demur,
And you guess that the more then his body must stir. 60

In the throng of the town like a stranger is he,
Like one whose own country's far over the sea;
And Nature, while through the great city he hies,
Full ten times a day takes his heart by surprise.

This gives him the fancy of one that is young, 65
More of soul in his face than of words on [25] his tongue;
Like a maiden of twenty he trembles and sighs,
And tears of fifteen will come [26] into his eyes.

What's a tempest to him, or the dry parching heats?
Yet he watches the clouds that pass over the streets; 70
With a look of such earnestness often will stand, [27]
You might think he'd twelve reapers at work in the Strand.

Where proud Covent-garden, in desolate hours
Of snow and hoar-frost, spreads her fruits and her flowers,
Old Adam will smile at the pains that have made 75
Poor winter look fine in such strange masquerade. [28]
[29]
'Mid coaches and chariots, a waggon of straw,
Like a magnet, the heart of old Adam can draw;
With a thousand soft pictures his memory will teem,
And his hearing is touched with the sounds of a dream. 80

Up the Haymarket hill he oft whistles his way,
Thrusts his hands in a waggon, and smells at the hay; [30]
He thinks of the fields he so often hath mown,
And is happy as if the rich freight were his own. [31]

But chiefly to Smithfield he loves to repair,--85
If you pass by at morning, you'll meet with him there.
The breath of