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Through tangling thickets headlong on they go,
Then stop and listen for their fancied foe;
The hindmost still the growing panic spreads,
Repeated fright the first alarm succeeds,
Till folly's wages, wounds and thorns, they reap:
Yet glorying in their fortunate escape,
Their groundless terrors by degrees soon cease,
And night's dark reign restores their wonted peace.
For now the gale subsides, and from each bough
The roosting pheasant's short but frequent crow
Invites to rest; and huddling side by side,
The herd in closest ambush seek to hide;

Seek some warm slope with shagged moss o'erspread,
Dry'd leaves their copious covering, and their bed.
In vain may Giles, through gath'ring glooms that fall,
And solemn silence, urge his piercing call:
Whole days and nights they tarry midst their store,
Nor quit the woods till oaks can yield no more.

THE BIRD-BOY.

Far weightier cares and wider scenes expand; What devastation marks the new-sown land! "From hungry woodland foes go, Giles, and guard The rising wheat; ensure its great reward: A future sustenance, a Summer's pride, Demand thy vigilance: then be it try'd: Exert thy voice, and wield thy shotless gun: Go, tarry there from morn till setting sun." Keen blows the blast, or ceaseless rain descends; The half-stript hedge a sorry shelter lends. O for a hovel, e'er so small or low, Whose roof, repelling winds and early snow, Might bring home's comforts fresh before his eyes! No sooner thought, than see the structure rise, In some sequester'd nook, embank'd around, Sods for its walls, and straw in burdens bound: Dried fuel hoarded is his richest store, And circling smoke obscures his little door; Whence creeping forth, to duty's call he yields, And strolls the Crusoe of the lonely fields. On whitethorns tow'ring, and the leafless rose, A frost-nipt feast in bright vermilion glows: Where clust'ring sloes in glossy order rise, He crops the loaded branch; a cumbrous prize; And o'er the flame the sputt'ring fruit he rests, Placing green sods to seat his coming guests; His guests by promise; playmates young and But ah! fresh pastimes lure their steps away! He sweeps his hearth, and homeward looks in vain, Till feeling disappointment's cruel pain, His fairy revels are exchang'd for rage,

gay:

His banquet marr'd, grown dull his hermitage.
The field becomes his prison, till on high
Benighted birds to shades and coverts fly.
Midst air, health, daylight, can he prisoner be?

If fields are prisons, where is liberty? Here still she dwells, and here her votaries stro But disappointed hope untunes the soul: Restraints unfelt whilst hours of rapture flow, When troubles press, to chains and barriers grow. Look then from trivial up to greater woes; From the poor bird-boy with his roasted sloes, To where the dungeon'd mourner heaves the sigh; Where not one cheering sun-beam meets his eye. Though ineffectual pity thine may be, No wealth, no pow'r, to set the captive free; Though only to thy ravish'd sight is given The radiant path that Howard trod to Heaven; Thy slights can make the wretched more forlorn, And deeper drive affliction's barbed thorn. Say not," I'll come and cheer thy gloomy cell With news of dearest friends; how good, how well: I'll be a joyful herald to thine heart:" Then fail, and play the worthless trifler's part, To sip flat pleasures from thy glass's brim, And waste the precious hour that's due to him. In mercy spare the base, unmanly blow: Where can he turn, to whom complain of you? Back to past joys in vain his thoughts may stray, Trace and retrace the beaten, worn-out way, The rankling injury will pierce his breast, And curses on thee break his midnight rest.

WINTER

THE APPEARANCE OF A WINTER SKY.

In part these nightly terrors to dispel, Giles, ere he sleeps, his little flock must tell. From the fire-side with many a shrug he hies, Glad if the full-orb'd moon salute his eyes, And through th' unbroken stillness of the night Shed on his path her beams of cheering light. With saunt'ring step he climbs the distant stile, Whilst all around him wears a placid smile; There views the white-rob'd clouds in clusters And all the glorious pageantry of Heaven. [driven, Low, on the utmost bound'ry of the sight, The rising vapours catch the silver light; Thence fancy measures, as they parting flyỵ, Which first will throw its shadow on the eye, Passing the source of light; and thence away, Succeeded quick by brighter still than they. Far yet above these wafted clouds are seen (In a remoter sky, still more serene,) Others, detach'd in ranges through the air, Spotless as snow, and countless as they're fair; Scatter'd immensely wide from east to west, The beauteous semblance of a flock at rest. These, to the raptur'd mind, aloud proclaim Their mighty shepherd's everlasting name.

4

GEORGE CRABBE.

THE VILLAGE.

BOOK I.

The village life, and every care that reigns
O'er youthful peasants and declining swains,
What labour yields, and what, that labour past,
Age, in its hour of languor, finds at last;
What form the real picture of the poor,
Demand a song-the Muse can give no more.
Fled are those times, when, in harmonious strains,
The rustic poet prais'd his native plains:
No shepherds now, in smooth alternate verse,
Their country's beauty or their nymphs' rehearse;
Yet still for these we frame the tender strain,
Still in our lays fond Corydons complain,
And shepherds' boys their amorous pains reveal,
The only pains, alas! they never feel.

On Mincio's banks, in Cæsar's bounteous reign,
If Tityrus found the golden age again,
Must sleepy bards the flattering dream prolong,
Mechanic echoes of the Mantuan song?
From truth and nature shall we widely stray,
Where Virgil, not where fancy, leads the way?

Yes, thus the Muses sing of happy swains, Because the Muses never knew their pains: They boast their peasants' pipes; but peasants now Resign their pipes, and plod behind the plough; And few, amid the rural-tribe, have time To number syllables and play with rhyme; Save honest Duck, what son of verse could share The poet's rapture and the peasant's care? Or the great labours of the field degrade With the new peril of a poorer trade?

From this chief cause these idle praises spring, That themes so easy few forbear to sing; For no deep thought the trifling subjects ask, To sing of shepherds is an easy task: The happy youth assumes the common strain, A nymph his mistress and himself a swain; With no sad scenes he clouds his tuneful prayer, But all, to look like her, is painted fair.

I grant indeed that fields and flocks have charms For him that grazes or for him that farms; But when amid such pleasing scenes I trace The poor laborious natives of the place, And see the mid-day sun, with fervid ray, On their bare heads and dewy temples play; While some, with feebler heads and fainter hearts, Deplore their fortune, yet sustain their parts: Then shall I dare these real ills to hide In tinsel trappings of poetic pride?

No; cast by fortune on a frowning coast, Which neither groves nor happy valleys boast; Where other cares than those the Muse relates, And other shepherds dwell with other mates; By such examples taught, I paint the cot, As truth will paint it and as bards will not: Nor you, ye poor, of letter'd scorn complain, To you the smoothest song is smooth in vain; O'ercome by labour and bow'd down by time, Feel you the barren flattery of a rhyme ? Can poets soothe you, when you pine for bread, By winding myrtles round your ruin'd shed? Can their light tales your weighty griefs o'erpower, Or glad with airy mirth the toilsome hour?

Lo! where the heath, with withering brake grown
o'er,
[poor;
Lends the light turf that warms the neighbouring
From thence a length of burning sand appears,
Where the thin harvest waves its wither'd ears;
Rank weeds, that every art and care defy,
Reign o'er the land and rob the blighted rye:
There thistles stretch their prickly arms afar,
And to the ragged infant threaten war;
There poppies nodding, mock the hope of toil;
There the blue bugloss paints the sterile soil;
Hardy and high, above the slender sheaf,
The slimy mallow waves her silky leaf;
O'er the young shoot the charlock throws a shade,
And clasping tares cling round the sickly blade;
With mingled tints the rocky coasts abound,
And a sad splendour vainly shines around.
So looks the nymph whom wretched arts adorn,
Betray'd by man, then left for man to scorn;
Whose cheek in vain assumes the mimic rose,
While her sad eyes the troubled breast disclose;
Whose outward splendour is but folly's dress,
Exposing most, when most it gilds distress.

Here joyless roam a wild amphibious race,
With sullen woe display'd in every face;
Who, far from civil arts and social fly,
And scowl at strangers with suspicious eye.

Here too the lawless merchant of the main
Draws from his plough th' intoxicated swain;
Want only claim'd the labour of the day,
But vice now steals his nightly rest away.

Where are the swains, who, daily labour done,
With rural games play'd down the setting sun;
Who struck with matchless force the bounding ball,
Or made the pond'rous quoit obliquely fall;
While some huge Ajax, terrible and strong,
Engag'd some artful stripling of the throng,

And fell beneath him, foil'd, while far around
Hoarse triumph rose, and rocks return'd the sound?
Where now are these?-Beneath yon cliff they stand,
To show the freighted pinnace where to land;
To load the ready steed with guilty haste,
To fly in terror o'er the pathless waste,
Or, when detected, in their straggling course,
To foil their foes by cunning or by force;
Or, yielding part (which equal knaves demand),
To gain a lawless passport through the land.

Here, wand'ring long, amid these frowning fields,
I sought the simple life that nature yields;
Rapine and wrong and fear usurp'd her place,
And a bold, artful, surly, savage race;
Who, only skill'd to take the finny tribe,
The yearly dinner, or septennial bribe,
Wait on the shore, and, as the waves run high,
On the tost vessel bend their eager eye;
Which to their coast directs its vent'rous way,
Theirs, or the ocean's, miserable prey.

[stand,

As on their neighbouring beach yon swallows
And wait for favouring winds to leave the land;
While still for flight the ready wing is spread:
So waited I the favouring hour, and fled—
Fled from these shores where guilt and famine
reign-

And cry'd, Ah! hapless they who still remain;
Who still remain to hear the ocean roar,
Whose greedy waves devour the lessening shore;
Till some fierce tide, with more imperious sway,
Sweeps the low hut and all it holds away;
When the sad tenant weeps from door to door,
And begs a poor protection from the poor!

But these are scenes where nature's niggard hand
Gave a spare portion to the famish'd land;
Hers is the fault, if here mankind complain
Of fruitless toil and labour spent in vain;
But yet in other scenes more fair in view,
Where plenty smiles-alas! she smiles for few-
And those who taste not, yet behold her store,
Are as the slaves that dig the golden ore,
The wealth around them makes them doubly poor.

Or will you deem them amply paid in health,
Labour's fair child, that languishes with wealth?
Go then! and see them rising with the sun,
Through a long course of daily toil to run;
See them beneath the dog-star's raging heat,
When the knees tremble and the temples beat;
Behold them, leaning on their scythes, look o'er
The labour past, and toils to come explore;
See them alternate suns and showers engage,
And hoard up aches and anguish for their age;
Through fens and marshy moors their steps pursue,
When their warm pores imbibe the evening dew;
Then own that labour may as fatal be
To these thy slaves, as thine excess to thee.
Amid this tribe too oft a manly pride
Strives in strong toil the fainting heart to hide;
There may you see the youth of slender frame
Contend with weakness, weariness, and shame;
Yet, urg'd along, and proudly loth to yield,

trives to join his fellows of the field:

Till long-contending nature droops at last,
Declining health rejects his poor repast,
His cheerless spouse the coming danger sees,
And mutual murmurs urge the slow disease.

Yet grant them health, 'tis not for us to tell,
Though the head droops not, that the heart is well
Or will you praise that homely healthy fare,
Plenteous and plain, that happy peasants share!
Oh! trifle not with wants you cannot feel,
Nor mock the misery of a stinted meal;
Homely not wholesome, plain not plenteous, such
As you who praise would never deign to touch.
Ye gentle souls, who dream of rural ease, [please;
Whom the smooth stream and smoother stat
Go! if the peaceful cot your praises share,
Go look within, and ask if peace be there;
If peace be his-that drooping weary sire,
Or theirs, that offspring round their feeble fire;
Or hers, that matron pale, whose trembling hand
Turns on the wretched hearth th' expiring brand!

Nor yet can time itself obtain for these
Life's latest comforts, due respect and ease;
For yonder see that hoary swain, whose age
Can with no cares except his own engage;
Who, propt on that rude staff, looks up to see
The bare arms broken from the withering tree,
On which, a boy, he climb'd the loftiest bough,
Then his first joy, but his sad emblem now.

He once was chief in all the rustic trade;
His steady hand the straightest furrow made;
Full many a prize he won, and still is proud
To find the triumphs of his youth allow'd;
A transient pleasure sparkles in his eyes,
He hears and smiles, then thinks again and sighs:
For now he journeys to his grave in pain;
The rich disdain him; nay, the poor disdain:
Alternate masters now their slave command,
Urge the weak efforts of his feeble hand,
And, when his age attempts its task in vain,
With ruthless taunts, of lazy poor complain.

Oft may you see him, when he tends the sheep,
His winter-charge, beneath the hillock weep;
Oft hear him murmur to the winds that blow
O'er his white locks, and bury them in snow,
When, rous'd by rage and muttering in the mor,
He mends the broken hedge with icy thorn:-

"Why do I live, when I desire to be
At once from life and life's long labour free?
Like leaves in spring, the young are blown away,
Without the sorrows of a slow decay;
I, like yon wither'd leaf, remain behind,
Nipp'd by the frost and shivering in the wind;
There it abides till younger buds come on,
As I, now all my fellow-swains are gone;
Then, from the rising generation thrust,
It falls, like me, unnoticed to the dust.

"These fruitful fields, these numerous flocks I see.
Are others' gain, but killing cares to me;
To me the children of my youth are lords,
Cool in their looks, but hasty in their words:
Wants of their own demand their care; and who
Feels his own want, and succours others too?

A lonely, wretched man, in pain I go,
= None need my help and none relieve my woe;
Then let my bones beneath the turf be laid,
And men forget the wretch they would not aid."
Thus groan the old, till by disease opprest,
They taste a final woe, and then they rest.

Theirs is yon house that holds the parish poor,
Whose walls of mud scarce bear the broken door;
There, where the putrid vapours, flagging, play,
And the dull wheel hums doleful through the
day;-

There children dwell who know no parents' care;
Parents, who know no children's love, dwell there!
Heart-broken matrons on their joyless bed,
Forsaken wives, and mothers never wed;
Dejected widows with unheeded tears,
And crippled age with more than childhood fears;
The lame, the blind, and, far the happiest they!
The moping idiot, and the madman gay.
Here too the sick their final doom receive,
Here brought, amid the scenes of grief, to grieve,
Where the loud groans from some sad chamber flow,
Mixt with the clamours of the crowd below;
Here sorrowing, they each kindred sorrow scan,
And the cold charities of man to man:
Whose laws indeed for ruin'd age provide,
And strong compulsion plucks the scrap from pride;
But still that scrap is bought with many a sigh,
And pride embitters what it can't deny.

Say ye, opprest by some fantastic woes,
Some jarring nerve that baffled your repose;
Who press the downy couch, while slaves advance
With timid eye to read the distant glance;
Who with sad prayers the weary doctor tease,
To name the nameless ever-new disease;
Who with mock patience dire complaints endure,
Which real pain and that alone can cure;
How would ye bear in real pain to lie,
Despis'd, neglected, left alone to die?
How would ye bear to draw your latest breath,
Where all that's wretched paves the way for death?
Such is that room which one rude beam divides,
And naked rafters form the sloping sides;
Where the vile bands that bind the thatch are seen,
And lath and mud are all that lie between; [way
Save one dull pane, that, coarsely patch'd, gives
To the rude tempest, yet excludes the day:
Here, on a matted flock, with dust o'erspread,
The drooping wretch reclines his languid head;
For him no hand the cordial cup applies,
Or wipes the tear that stagnates in his eyes;
No friends with soft discourse his pain beguile,
Or promise hope till sickness wears a smile.

But soon a loud and hasty summons calls,
Shakes the thin roof, and echoes round the walls;
Anon, a figure enters, quaintly neat,
All pride and business, bustle and conceit;
With looks unalter'd by these scenes of woe,
With speed that, entering, speaks his haste to go,
He bids the gazing throng around him fly,
And carries fate and physic in his eye:
A potent quack, long vers'd in human ills,

Who first insults the victim whom he kills; Whose murd'rous hand a drowsy bench protect, And whose most tender mercy is neglect.

Paid by the parish for attendance here, He wears contempt upon his sapient sneer; In haste he seeks the bed where misery lies, Impatience mark'd in his averted eyes; And, some habitual queries hurried o'er, Without reply, he rushes on the door: His drooping patient, long inur'd to pain, And long unheeded, knows remonstrance vain; He ceases now the feeble help to crave Of man; and silent sinks into the grave.

But ere his death some pious doubts arise,
Some simple fears which "bold bad" men despise;
Fain would he ask the parish-priest to prove
His title certain to the joys above:

For this he sends the murmuring nurse, who calls
The holy stranger to these dismal walls:
And doth not he, the pious man, appear,
He, "passing rich with forty pounds a year?"
Ah! no; a shepherd of a different stock,
And far unlike him, feeds this little flock:
A jovial youth, who thinks his Sunday's task,
As much as God or man can fairly ask;
The rest he gives to loves and labours light,
To fields the morning and to feasts the night;
None better skill'd the noisy pack to guide,
To urge their chase, to cheer them or to chide;
A sportsman keen, he shoots through half the
day,

And, skill'd at whist, devotes the night to play:
Then, while such honours bloom around his head,
Shall he sit sadly by the sick-man's bed,
To raise the hope he feels not, or with zeal
To combat fears that e'en the pious feel?

Now once again the gloomy scene explore,
Less gloomy now; the bitter hour is o'er,
The man of many sorrows sighs no more.-
Up yonder hill, behold how sadly slow
The bier moves winding from the vale below;
There lie the happy dead, from trouble free,
And the glad parish pays the frugal fee:
No more, O death! thy victim starts to hear
Churchwarden stern, or kingly overseer;
No more the farmer claims his humble bow,
Thou art his lord, the best of tyrants thou!

Now to the church behold the mourners come,
Sedately torpid and devoutly dumb;
The village-children now their games suspend,
To see the bier that bears their ancient friend:
For he was one in all their idle sport,
And like a monarch rul'd their little court;
The pliant bow he form'd, the flying ball,
The bat, the wicket, were his labours all;
Him now they follow to his grave, and stand
Silent and sad, and gazing, hand in hand;
While bending low, their eager eyes explore
The mingled relics of the parish-poor;
The bell tolls late, the moping owl flies round,
Fear marks the flight and magnifies the sound;
The busy priest, detain'd by weightier care,

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