On the green slope, watch his slow wasting form
Reflected, trembling, on the river’s breast?
His garb is coarse and threadbare, and his cheek
Is prematurely faded. The check’d tear,
Dimming his dark eye’s lustre, seems to say,
“This world is now, to me, a barren waste,
“A desart, full of weeds and wounding thorns,
“And I am weary: for my journey here
“Has been, though short, but chearless.” Is it so?
Poor Traveller! Oh tell me, tell me all—