The Old Cumberland Beggar by William Wordsworth

The class of Beggars to which the Old Man here described belongs, will probably soon be extinct. It consisted of poor, and, mostly, old and infirm persons, who confined themselves to a stated round in their neighbourhood, and had certain fixed days, on which, at different houses, they regularly received alms, sometimes in money, but mostly in provisions.

I saw an aged beggar in my walk, / And he was seated by the highway side / On a low structure of rude masonry / Built at the foot of a huge hill, that they / Who lead their horses down the steep rough road / May thence remount at ease. The aged Man / Had placed his staff across the broad smooth stone / That overlays the pile, and from a bag / All white with flour, the dole of village dames, / He drew his scraps and fragments, one by one, / And scanned them with a fixed and serious look / Of idle computation. In the sun, / Upon the second step of that small pile, / Surrounded by those wild unpeopled hills, / He sat, and ate his food in solitude: / And ever, scattered from his palsied hand, / That, still attempting to prevent the waste, / Was baffled still, the crumbs in little showers / Fell on the ground, and the small mountain birds, / Not venturing yet to peck their destined meal, / Approached within the length of half his staff.