Upon their jutting chests. He, formed to bear The pelting brunt of the tempestuous night, 110 With half-shut eyes and puckered cheeks and teeth Presented bare against the storm, plods on. One hand secures his hat, save when with both He brandishes his pliant length of whip, Resounding oft, and never heard in vain. 115 Oh happy, and, in my account, denied That sensibility of pain with which Refinement is endued, thrice happy thou! Thy frame, robust and hardy, feels indeed The piercing cold, but feels it unimpaired; 120 The learned finger never need explore

Thy vigorous pulse, and the unhealthful East, That breathes the spleen, and searches every bone Of the infirm, is wholesome air to thee. Thy days roll on exempt from household care; 125 Thy waggon is thy wife; and the poor beasts That drag the dull companion to and fro,

Thine helpless charge, dependent on thy care. Ah, treat them kindly! rude as thou appearest, Yet show that thou hast mercy, which the great, 130 With needless hurry whirled from place to place, Humane as they would seem, not always show. Poor, yet industrious, modest, quiet, neat, Such claim compassion in a night like this, And have a friend in every feeling heart. 135 Warmed, while it lasts, by labour, all day long They brave the season, and yet find at eve, Ill-clad and fed but sparely, time to cool. The frugal housewife trembles when she lights Her scanty stock of brushwood, blazing clear, 140 But dying soon, like all terrestrial joys.

The few small embers left she nurses well; And while her infant race, with outspread hands And crowded knees, sit cowering o'er the sparks, Retires, content to quake, so they be warmed. 145 The man feels least, as more inured than she To winter, and the current in his veins More briskly moved by his severer toil; Yet he, too, finds his own distress in theirs. The taper soon extinguished, which I saw

150 Dangled along at the cold finger's end Just when the day declined, and the brown loaf Lodged on the shelf, half-eaten without sauce Of sav'ry cheese, or butter costlier still, Sleep seems their only refuge. For, alas! 155 Where penury is felt the thought is chained, And sweet colloquial pleasures are but few.

With all this thrift they thrive not. All the care
Ingenious parsimony takes, but just

Saves the small inventory, bed and stool,

160 Skillet and old carved chest, from public sale. They live, and live without extorted alms

From grudging hands, but other boast have none To soothe their honest pride, that scorns to beg; Nor comfort else, but in their mutual love. 165 I praise you much, ye meek and patient pair, For ye are worthy; choosing rather far A dry but independent crust, hard-earned And eaten with a sigh, than to endure The rugged frowns and insolent rebuffs 170 Of knaves in office, partial in the work Of distribution, liberal of their aid

To clamorous importunity in rags,

But ofttimes deaf to suppliants who would blush To wear a tattered garb however coarse,

175 Whom famine cannot reconcile to filth; These ask with painful shyness, and, refused Because deserving, silently retire.

But be ye of good courage! Time itself

Shall much befriend you. Time shall give increase,
180 And all your numerous progeny, well trained,
But helpless, in few years shall find their hands,
And labour too. Meanwhile ye shall not want
What, conscious of your virtues, we can spare,
Nor what a wealthier than ourselves may send.
185 I mean the man who, when the distant poor
Need help, denies them nothing but his name.
But poverty with most who whimper forth
Their long complaints, is self-inflicted woe,
The effect of laziness or sottish waste.
190 Now goes the nightly thief prowling abroad
For plunder, much solicitous how best
He may compensate for a day of sloth
By works of darkness and nocturnal wrong.
Woe to the gardener's pale, the farmer's hedge
195 Plashed neatly and secured with driven stakes
Deep in the loamy bank. Uptorn by strength
Resistless in so bad a cause, but lame

To better deeds, he bundles up the spoil,
An ass's burden, and when laden most
200 And heaviest, light of foot steals fast away.
Nor does the boarded hovel better guard
The well-stacked pile of riven logs and roots
From his pernicious force. Nor will he leave.
Unwrenched the door, however well secured,
205 Where chanticleer amidst his harem sleeps

In unsuspecting pomp; twitched from the perch,
He gives the princely bird with all his wives
To his voracious bag, struggling in vain,
And loudly wondering at the sudden change.
210 Nor this to feed his own.
"Twere some excuse,

Did pity of their sufferings warp aside
His principle, and tempt him into sin
For their support, so destitute. But they
Neglected pine at home, themselves, as more
215 Exposed than others, with less scruple made
His victims, robbed of their defenceless all.
Cruel is all he does. "Tis quenchless thirst
Of ruinous ebriety that prompts

His every action, and imbrutes the man. 220 Oh for a law to noose the villain's neck

Who starves his own; who persecutes the blood
He gave them in his children's veins, and hates
And wrongs the woman he has sworn to love.

Pass where we may, through city or through town, 225 Village or hamlet, of this merry land,

Though lean and beggared, every twentieth pace Conducts the unguarded nose to such a whiff Of stale debauch, forth-issuing from the styes That law has licensed, as makes Temperance reel. 230 There sit, involved and lost in curling clouds Of Indian fume, and guzzling deep, the boor, The lackey, and the groom. The craftsman there Takes a Lethean leave of all his toil;

Smith, cobbler, joiner, he that plies the shears,
235 And he that kneads the dough: all loud alike,
All learned, and all drunk. The fiddle screams
Plaintive and piteous, as it wept and wailed
Its wasted tones and harmony unheard;
Fierce the dispute, whate'er the theme; while she,
240 Fell Discord, arbitress of such debate,

Perched on the sign-post, holds with even hand
Her undecisive scales. In this she lays
A weight of ignorance, in that, of pride;
And smiles delighted with the eternal poise.
245 Dire is the frequent curse and its twin sound
The cheek-distending oath, not to be praised
As ornamental, musical, polite,

Like those which modern senators employ,
Whose oath is rhetoric, and who swear for fame.
250 Behold the schools in which plebeian minds,
Once simple, are initiated in arts

Which some may practise with politer grace,
But none with readier skill! 'Tis here they learn
The road that leads from competence and peace

255 To indigence and rapine; till at last
Society, grown weary of the load,

Shakes her encumbered lap, and casts them out.
But censure profits little. Vain the attempt
To advertise in verse a public pest,

260 That, like the filth with which the peasant feeds
His hungry acres, stinks and is of use.

The excise is fattened with the rich result
Of all this riot; and ten thousand casks,
For ever dribbling out their base contents,
265 Touched by the Midas finger of the state,
Bleed gold for Ministers to sport away.

Drink and be mad then; 'tis your country bids!
Gloriously drunk, obey the important call!

Her cause demands the assistance of your throats; 270 Ye all can swallow, and she asks no more.

Would I had fallen upon those happier days
That poets celebrate; those golden times
And those Arcadian scenes that Maro sings,
And Sidney, warbler of poetic prose.

275 Nymphs were Dianas then, and swains had hearts
That felt their virtues. Innocence, it seems,

From courts dismissed, found shelter in the groves.
The footsteps of simplicity, impressed

Upon the yielding herbage (so they sing),

280 Then were not all effaced. Then speech profane
And manners profligate were rarely found,
Observed as prodigies, and soon reclaimed.
Vain wish! those days were never: airy dreams
Sat for the picture; and the poet's hand,
285 Imparting substance to an empty shade,
Imposed a gay delirium for a truth.
Grant it: I still must envy them an age
That favoured such a dream, in days like these
Impossible, when virtue is so scarce,

290 That to suppose a scene where she presides
Is tramontane, and stumbles all belief.
No: we are polished now. The rural lass,
Whom once her virgin modesty and grace,
Her artless manners, and her neat attire,
295 So dignified, that she was hardly less

Than the fair shepherdess of old romance,
Is seen no more. The character is lost.
Her head, adorned with lappets pinned aloft
And ribbons streaming gay, superbly raised
800 And magnified beyond all human size,

Indebted to some smart wig-weaver's hand
For more than half the tresses it sustains;
Her elbows ruffled, and her tottering form

Herrig-Förster, British Authors.

20

Ill propped upon French heels; she might be deemed
806 (But that the basket dangling on her arm
Interprets her more truly) of a rank

Too proud for dairy-work, or sale of eggs.
Expect her soon with footboy at her heels,
No longer blushing for her awkward load,
810 Her train and her umbrella all her care.

The town has tinged the country; and the stain
Appears a spot upon a vestal's robe,

The worse for what it soils. The fashion runs
Down into scenes still rural, but, alas!

815 Scenes rarely graced with rural manners now.
Time was when in the pastoral retreat

The unguarded door was safe; men did not watch
To invade another's right, or guard their own.
Then sleep was undisturbed by fear, unscared
820 By drunken howlings; and the chilling tale
Of midnight murder was a wonder heard
With doubtful credit, told to frighten babes.
But farewell now to unsuspicious nights
And slumbers unalarmed. Now, ere you sleep,
825 See that your polished arms be primed with care,
And drop the night-bolt. Ruffians are abroad;
And the first larum of the cock's shrill throat
May prove a trumpet, summoning your ear
To horrid sounds of hostile feet within.

III.

Book V, The Winter Morning Walk, 11. 1-57: The foddering of cattle-The woodman. 'Tis morning; and the sun, with ruddy orb

Ascending, fires the horizon; while the clouds,
That crowd away before the driving wind,
More ardent as the disk emerges more,
Resemble most some city in a blaze,

Seen through the leafless wood. His slanting ray
Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale,
And, tinging all with his own rosy hue,
From every herb and every spiry blade
10 Stretches a length of shadow o'er the field.
Mine, spindling into longitude immense,
In spite of gravity and sage remark
That I myself am but a fleeting shade,
Provokes me to a smile. With eye askance

15

I view the muscular proportioned limb

Transformed to a lean shank; the shapeless pair,
As they designed to mock me, at my side
Take step for step; and, as I near approach
The cottage, walk along the plastered wall,