'What ails you, child?'—she sobb'd, 'Look here!'
I saw it in the wheel entangled,
A weather-beaten rag as e'er
From any garden scarecrow dangled.
There, twisted between nave and spoke,
It hung, nor could at once be freed;
But our joint pains unloosed the cloak,
A miserable rag indeed!
'And whither are you going, child,
To-night, along these lonesome ways?'
'To Durham,' answer'd she, half wild—
'Then come with me into the chaise.'
Insensible to all relief
Sat the poor girl, and forth did send
Sob after sob, as if her grief
Could never, never have an end.
'My child, in Durham do you dwell?'
She check'd herself in her distress,
And said, 'My name is Alice Fell;
I'm fatherless and motherless.
'And I to Durham, sir, belong.'
Again, as if the thought would choke
Her very heart, her grief grew strong;
And all was for her tatter'd cloak!
The chaise drove on; our journey's end
Was nigh; and, sitting by my side,
As if she had lost her only friends,
She wept, nor would be pacified.
Up to the tavern door we post;
Of Alice and her grief I told;
And I gave money to the host,
To buy a new cloak for the old:
'And let it be of duffil grey,
As warm a cloak as man can sell!'
Proud creature was she the next day,
The little orphan, Alice Fell!
W. Wordsworth