Be his the natural silence of old age! Let him be free of mountain solitudes; Of high-way side, and with the little birds So in the eye of Nature let him die. VOL. II. X II. THE FARMER OF TILSBURY VALE. "Tis not for the unfeeling, the falsely refined, He dwells in the centre of London's wide Town; Mid the dews, in the sunshine of morn,-mid the joy A Farmer he was; and his house far and near How oft have I heard in sweet Tilsbury Vale Of the silver-rimmed horn whence he dealt his good ale. Yet Adam was far as the farthest from ruin, His fields seemed to know what their Master was doing; And turnips, and corn-land, and meadow, and lea, All caught the infection-as generous as he. Yet Adam prized little the feast and the bowl, The fields better suited the ease of his Soul: He strayed through the fields like an indolent Wight, For Adam was simple in thought, and the Poor He gave them the best that he had; or, to say What less may mislead you, they took it away. Thus thirty smooth years did he thrive on his farm; His means are run out, he must beg, or must borrow. To the neighbours he went,—all were free with their money; For his hive had so long been replenished with honey That they dreamt not of dearth-He continued his rounds, Knocked here and knocked there, pounds still adding to pounds. He paid what he could of his ill-gotten pelf, You lift up your eyes!-and I guess that you frame In him it was scarcely a business of art, To London—a sad emigration I ween With his grey hairs he went from the brook and the green; And there, with small wealth but his legs and his hands, As lonely he stood as a Crow on the sands. All trades, as needs was, did old Adam assume,Served as Stable-boy, Errand-boy, Porter, and Groom; But nature is gracious, necessity kind, And, in spite of the shame that may lurk in his mind, He seems ten birth-days younger, is green and is stout; You would say that each hair of his beard was alive, For he's not like an Old Man that leisurely goes About work that he knows in a track that he knows; But often his mind is compelled to demur, And you guess that the more then his body must stir. In the throng of the Town like a Stranger is he, This gives him the fancy of one that is young, What's a tempest to him or the dry parching heats? You might think he'd twelve Reapers at work in the Strand. |