They, who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth, And wanton, often cruel, riot waste,
Ah! little think they, while they dance along, 105 How many feel this very moment death, And all the sad variety of pain:
How many sink in the devouring flood
Or more devouring flame; how many bleed By shameful variance betwixt man and man; 110 How many pine in want and dungeon-glooms, Shut from the common air, and common use Of their own limbs; how many drink the cup Of baleful grief, or eat the bitter bread Of misery; sore pierced by wintry winds, 115 How many shrink into the sordid hut Of cheerless poverty; how many shake With all the fiercer tortures of the mind, Unbounded passion, madness, guilt, remorse, Whence tumbled headlong from the height of life 120 They furnish matter for the tragic muse;
Even in the vale, where wisdom loves to dwell
With friendship, peace, and contemplation joined,
How many, racked with honest passions, droop
In deep retired distress; how many stand
125 Around the deathbed of their dearest friends,
And point the parting anguish. Thought fond man
Of these and all the thousand nameless ills
That one incessant struggle render life,
One scene of toil, of suffering, and of fate,
130 Vice in his high career would stand appalled,
And heedless rambling impulse learn to think;
The conscious heart of charity would warm,
And her wide wish benevolence dilate;
The social tear would rise, the social sigh;
135 And into clear perfection, gradual bliss,
Refining still, the social passions work.
11. 352-422 (1727): Haymaking and Sheep-shearing.
Now swarms the village o'er the jovial mead,
The rustic youth, brown with meridian toil,
Healthful and strong; full as the summer rose
Blown by prevailing suns, the ruddy maid,
6 Half naked, swelling on the sight, and all
Her kindling graces burning o'er her cheek.
Even stooping age is here; and infant hands.
Trail the long rake, or, with the fragrant load
O'ercharged, amid the kind oppression roll.
10 Wide flies the tedded grain; all in a row
Advancing broad, or wheeling round the field,
They spread their breathing harvest to the sun,
That throws refreshful round a rural smell;
Or, as they rake the green-appearing ground,
15 And drive the dusky wave along the mead,
The russet haycock rises thick behind,
In order gay; while, heard from dale to dale,
Waking the breeze, resounds the blended voice
Of happy labour, love, and social glee.
Or, rushing thence in one diffusive band,
They drive the troubled flocks, by many a dog
Compelled, to where the mazy-running brook
Forms a deep pool, this bank abrupt and high,
And that fair-spreading in a pebbled shore.
25 Urged to the giddy brink, much is the toil,
The clamour much, of men, and boys, and dogs,
Ere the soft fearful people to the flood
Commit their woolly sides; and oft the swain,
On some impatient seizing, hurls them in.
30 Emboldened then, nor hesitating more,
Fast, fast they plunge amid the flashing wave,
And panting labour to the farthest shore.
Repeated this, till deep the well-washed fleece
Has drunk the flood, and from his lively haunt
35 The trout is banished by the sordid stream,
Heavy and dripping to the breezy brow
Slow move the harmless race; where, as they spread
Their swelling treasures to the sunny ray,
Inly disturbed, and wondering what this wild
40 Outrageous tumult means, their loud complaints
The country fill, and, tossed from rock to rock,
Incessant bleatings run around the hills.
At last of snowy white, the gathered flocks
Are in the wattled pen innumerous pressed,
45 Head above head; and, ranged in lusty rows,
The shepherds sit, and whet the sounding shears.
The housewife waits to roll her fleecy stores,
With all her gay-drest maids attending round.
One, chief, in gracious dignity enthroned,
50 Shines o'er the rest the pastoral queen, and rays.
Her smiles sweet-beaming on her shepherd-king;
While the glad circle round them yield their souls
To festive mirth, and wit that knows no gall.
Meantime their joyous task goes on apace.
55 Some mingling stir the melted tar, and some
Deep on the new-shorn vagrant's heaving side
To stamp his master's cipher ready stand;
Others the unwilling wether drag along;
And, glorying in his might, the sturdy boy
60 Holds by the twisted horns the indignant ram.
Behold where bound, and of its robe bereft
By needy man, that all-depending lord,
How meek, how patient the mild creature lies!
What softness in its melancholy face,
65 What dumb-complaining innoncence appears!
Fear not, ye gentle tribes, 'tis not the knife.
Of horrid slaughter that is o'er you waved;
No, 'tis the tender swain's well-guided shears,
Who, having now, to pay his annual care,
70 Borrowed your fleece, to you a cumbrous load,
Will send you bounding to your hills again.
11. 378-465 (1728): Angling.
Now when the first foul torrent of the brooks,
Swelled with the vernal rains, is ebbed away,
And whitening down their mossy-tinctured stream
Descends the billowy foam now is the time,
5 While yet the dark-brown water aids the guile,
To tempt the trout. The well-dissembled fly,
The rod fine-tapering with elastic spring,
Snatched from the hoary steed the floating line,
And all thy slender watery stores prepare.
10 But let not on thy hook the tortured worm
Convulsive twist in agonizing folds;
Which, by rapacious hunger swallowed deep,
Gives, as you tear it from the bleeding breast
Of the weak, helpless, uncomplaining wretch,
15 Harsh pain and horror to the tender hand.
When with his lively ray the potent sun
Has pierced the streams, and roused the finny race,
Then, issuing cheerful, to thy sport repair;
Chief should the western breezes curling play,
20 And light o'er ether bear the shadowy clouds.
High to their fount, this day, amid the hills
And woodlands warbling round, trace up the brooks;
The next, pursue their rocky-channelled maze
Down to the river, in whose ample wave
25 Their little naiads love to sport at large.
Just in the dubious point where with the pool
Is mixed the trembling stream, or where it boils
Around the stone, or from the hollowed bank
Reverted plays in undulating flow,
30 There throw, nice-judging, the delusive fly;
And, as you lead it round in artful curve,
With eye attentive mark the springing game.
Straight as above the surface of the flood
They wanton rise, or urged by hunger leap,
35 Then fix, with gentle twitch, the barbed hook,
Some lightly tossing to the grassy bank,
And to the shelving shore slow-dragging some,
With various hand proportioned to their force.
If yet too young, and easily deceived,
40 A worthless prey scarce bends your pliant rod,
Him, piteous of his youth and the short space
He has enjoyed the vital light of heaven,
Soft disengage, and back into the stream
The speckled infant throw. But should you lure
45 From his dark haunt beneath the tangled roots
Of pendent trees the monarch of the brook,
Behoves you then to ply your finest art.
Long time he, following cautious, scans the fly;
And oft attempts to seize it, but as oft
50 The dimpled water speaks his jealous fear.
At last, while haply o'er the shaded sun
Passes a cloud, he desperate takes the death
With sullen plunge. At once he darts along,
Deep-struck, and runs out all the lengthened line;
55 Then seeks the farthest ooze, the sheltering weed,
The caverned bank, his old secure abode;
And flies aloft, and flounces round the pool,
Indignant of the guile. With yielding hand,
That feels him still, yet to his furious course
60 Gives way, you, now retiring, following now
Across the stream, exhaust his idle rage;
Till, floating broad upon his breathless side,
And to his fate abandoned, to the shore
You gaily drag your unresisting prize.
Thus pass the temperate hours; but when the sun
Shakes from his noon-day throne the scattering clouds,
Even shooting listless languor through the deeps,
Then seek the bank where flowering elders crowd,
Where scattered wild the lily of the vale
70 Its balmy essence breathes, where cowslips hang
The dewy head, where purple violets lurk
With all the lowly children of the shade;
Or lie reclined beneath yon spreading ash
Hung o'er the steep, whence Lorne on liquid wing
75 The sounding culver shoots, or where the hawk
High in the beetling cliff his eyry builds.
There let the classic page thy fancy lead
Through rural scenes, such as the Mantuan swain
Paints in the matchless harmony of song;
80 Or catch thyself the landscape, gliding swift
Athwart imagination's vivid eye;
Or, by the vocal woods and waters lulled,
And lost in lonely musing, in a dream
Confused of careless solitude, where mix
85 Ten thousand wandering images of things,
Soothe every gust of passion into peace.
All but the swellings of the softened heart,
That waken, not disturb, the tranquil mind.
11. 311-359 (1730): Storm in Harvest.
Defeating oft the labours of the year,
The sultry south collects a potent blast.
At first, the groves are scarcely seen to stir
Their trembling tops, and a still murmur runs
6 Along the soft-inclining fields of corn;
But, as the aërial tempest fuller swells,
And in one mighty stream, invisible,
Immense, the whole excited atmosphere
Impetuous rushes o'er the sounding world,
10 Strained to the root, the stooping forest pours
A rustling shower of yet untimely leaves.
High-beat, the circling mountains eddy in
From the bare wild the dissipated storm,
And send it in a torrent down the vale.
15 Exposed and naked to its utmost rage,
Through all the sea of harvest rolling round
The billowy plain floats wide; nor can evade,
Though pliant to the blast, its seizing force, -
Or whirled in air, or into vacant chaff
20 Shook waste. And sometimes too a burst of rain, Swept from the black horizon, broad descends
In one continuous flood. Still overhead
The mingling tempest weaves its gloom, and still
The deluge deepens, till the fields around
25 Lie sunk and flatted in the sordid wave.
Sudden the ditches swell; the meadows swim.
Red from the hills innumerable streams
Tumultuous roar, and high above its bank
The river lift, before whose rushing tide,
30 Herds, flocks, and harvests, cottages, and swains,
Roll mingled down, all that the winds had spared
In one wild moment ruined, the big hopes
And well-earned treasures of the painful year.
Fled to some eminence, the husbandman
85 Helpless beholds the miserable wreck
Driving along; his drowning ox at once
Descending with his labours scattered round
He sees; and instant o'er his shivering thought
Comes Winter unprovided, and a train
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