To tender offices and pensive thoughts. Beat his grey locks against his withered face. Of highway side, and with the little birds So in the eye of Nature let him die! THE FARMER OF TILSBURY VALE. 'Tis not for the unfeeling, the falsely refined, The squeamish in taste, and the narrow of mind, And the small critic wielding his delicate pen, That I sing of old Adam, the pride of old men. He dwells in the centre of London's wide Town; His staff is a sceptre-his grey hairs a crown; And his bright eyes look brighter, set off by the streak Of the unfaded rose that still blooms on his cheek. 'Mid the dews, in the sunshine of morn,-mid the joy Of the fields, he collected that bloom, when a boy; There fashioned that countenance, which, in spite of a stain That his life hath received, to the last will re main. A Farmer he was; and his house far and near Was the boast of the country for excellent cheer: How oft have I heard in sweet Tilsbury Vale Of the silver-rimmed horn whence he dealt his mild 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 quiet of nature was Adam's delight. For Adam was simple in thought, and the poor, Thus thirty snooth years did he thrive on his farm; The Genius of plenty preserved him from harm: At length, what to most is a season of sorrow 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 with this ill-gotten pelf, And something, it might be, reserved for himself: Then, (what is too true) without hinting a word, Turned his back on the country-and off like a bird. You lift up your eyes!-but I guess that you frame A judgment too harsh of the sin and the shame; 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 need 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 birthdays younger, is green and is stout; Twice as fast as before does his blood run about; You would say that each hair of his beard was alive, And his fingers are busy as bees in a hive. 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, Like one whose own country's far over the sea; And Nature, while through the great city he hies, Full ten times a day takes his heart by surprise. This gives him the fancy of one that is young, More of soul in his face than of words on his tongue; |