I praise the Frenchman,* his remark was shrewd How sweet, how passing sweet is solitude! 740 But grant me still a friend in my retreat, 745 750 For evils daily felt and hardly borne. Not knowing thee, we reap with bleeding hands Flow'rs of rank odour upon thorny lands, 755 And while Experience cautions us in vain, 760 Those humours tart as wine upon the fret, Which idleness and weariness beget: These, and a thousand plagues, that haunt the breast, Fond of the phantom of an earthly rest, Divine communion chases, as the day 765 Drives to their dens th' obedient beasts of prey. See Judah's promis'd king, bereft of all, Driv'n out an exile from the face of Saul; To distant caves the lonely wand'rer flies, To seek that peace a tyrant's frown denies. 770 Hear him, o'erwhelm'd with sorrow, yet rejoice; No, not a moment, in his royal heart; 'Tis manly musick, such as martyrs make, 775 780 785 To meliorate and tame the stubborn soil; To give dissimilar, yet fruitful lands, The grain, or herb, or plant, that each demands; To cherish virtue in an humble state, And share the joys your bounty may create; 790 To mark the matchless workings of the pow'r, In colour these, and those delight the smell ; Emplovs, shut out from more important views, Feebly and vainly at poetick fame,) Fast by the banks of the slow-winding Ouse; Content if thus sequester'd I may raise A monitor's though not a poet's praise, And while I teach an art too little known, To close life wisely, may not waste my own. 795 800 805 THE YEARLY DISTRESS, 171 OR, TITHING TIME AT STOCK, IN ESSEX. Verses addressed to a country clergyman, complaining of the disagreeableness of the day annually appointed for receiving the dues at the parsonage. COME, ponder well, for 'tis no jest, The priest he merry is and blithe, He then is full of frights and fears, For then the farmers come, jog, jog, Along the miry road, Each heart as heavy as a log, To make their payments good. In sooth, the sorrow of such days Is not to be express'd, When he that takes, and he that pays, Now all unwelcome at his gates And well he may, for well he knows So in they come-each makes his leg, And not to quit a score. "And how does miss and madam do, "The little boy, and all?" "All tight and well. And how do you, "Good Mr. What-d'ye-call?" The dinner comes, and down they sit: One wipes his nose upon his sleeve, One spits upon the floor, Yet not to give offence or grieve, The punch goes round, and they are dull And lumpish still as ever ; Like barrels with their bellies full, They only weigh the heavier. At length the busy time begins, One talks of mildew and of frost, And one of storms of hail, Quoth one," A rarer man than you O why are farmers made so coarse, A kick that scarce would move a horse, Then let the boobies stay at home; |