Where proud Covent-garden, in desolate hours Of snow and hoar-frost, spreads her fruit and her flowers, Mid coaches and chariots, a Waggon of straw Up the Hay-market hill he oft whistles his way, But chiefly to Smithfield he loves to repair,— If you pass by at morning you'll meet with him there: The breath of the Cows you may see him inhale, And his heart all the while is in Tilsbury Vale. Now farewell, Old Adam, when low thou art laid III. THE SMALL CELANDINE. THERE is a Flower, the Lesser Celandine, That shrinks, like many more, from cold and rain; When hailstones have been falling, swarm on swarm, Or blasts the green field and the trees distress'd, Oft have I seen it muffled up from harm, In close self-shelter, like a Thing at rest. But lately, one rough day, this Flower I pass'd, I stopp'd, and said with inly-muttered voice, "It doth not love the shower, nor seek the cold: This neither is its courage nor its choice, But its necessity in being old. The sunshine may not bless it, nor the dew; It cannot help itself in its decay; Stiff in its members, withered, changed of hue." And, in my spleen, I smiled that it was grey. To be a Prodigal's Favorite-then, worse truth, O Man! that from thy fair and shining youth IV. ANIMAL TRANQUILLITY AND DECAY. A SKETCH. THE little hedge-row birds That peck along the road, regard him not. His look and bending figure, all bespeak A man who does not move with pain, but moves To settled quiet: he is one by whom All effort seems forgotten; one to whom Long patience hath such mild composure given, V. THE TWO THIEVES, OR, THE LAST STAGE OF AVARICE. O NOW that the genius of Bewick were mine, What feats would I work with my magical hand! Book-learning and books should be banished the land: And for hunger and thirst and such troublesome calls Every Ale-house should then have a feast on its walls. The Traveller would hang his wet clothes on a chair; Let them smoke, let them burn, not a straw would he care For the Prodigal Son, Joseph's Dream and his Sheaves, Oh, what would they be to my tale of two Thieves? |