The Old Cumberland Beggar, a Description

The Old Cumberland Beggar, a Description is a poem written by William Wordsworth. It was composed around 1798 and published in 1800, in the second edition of his and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads.The poem discusses the nature of mendicancy and charity through a description of a beggar and instances of help which he receives from a local community. It is considered to be a political comment against the amendments of the Poor Laws in the 18th and 19th century Britain. Wordsworth himself wrote that “The Old Cumberland Beggar” relates to that issue. The poem’s political engagement and ambiguous moral message have elicited disparate reactions among critics and have been a subject of debates.