The Farmers Boy

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Farmer's Boy, by Robert
Bloomfield
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Title: The Farmer's Boy
A Rural Poem
Author: Robert Bloomfield
Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9092]
[Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on September
4, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English

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0. START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
FARMER'S BOY ***
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[Illustration]
THE FARMER'S BOY;
A RURAL POEM.
By ROBERT BLOOMFIELD.
"A SHEPHERD'S BOY ... HE SEEKS NO BETTER NAME."
The Third Edition
LONDON:
Printed for Vernor and Hood, Poultry
and sold by T.C.
Rickman, 7, Upper Mary-Le-Bone-Street;
Ingram, and Dingle, Bury;
Booth, Norwich; Hill, Edinburgh;
Archer, and Dugdale, Dublin.
MDCCC
A sonnet has come to my hands, the production,--and nearly the first
poetical Production,--of a very young Lady. I have not the Author's
consent to publish it: and there is no time to ask it. But I cannot omit
adding such a flower to the Wreath of Glory of my Friend. I have
therefore ventured to publish it without waiting permission; with one or
two slight alterations.
C. L.
25 Aug. 1800.
TO THE AUTHOR OF
THE FARMER'S BOY.

I.
_If wealth, if honour, at command were mine,
And every boast
Ambition could desire,
The pompous Gifts, sweet Bard, I would
resign
For the aft Music of thy tuneful Lyre,_
II.
_Which speaks the soul awake to every charm
That Nature open'd
from thy humble cot:
Speaks powers chill Indigence could not disarm;

Proof to Humanity's severest lot._
III.
_Thou Friend to Nature, and of Man the Friend;
Of every generous
and benignant cause;
The accents of thy glowing worth, unfeign'd,

Live in the cadence of each feeling pause.
Here thought, alternate, in
the noble Plan
Admires the POET, and reveres the Man._
25 Aug. 1800.
PREFACE
Having the satisfaction of introducing to the Public this very pleasing
and characteristic POEM, the FARMER'S BOY, I think it will be
agreeable to preface it with a short Account of the manner in which it
came into my hands: and, which will be much more interesting to every
Reader, a little History of the Author, which has been communicated to
me by his Brother, and which I shall very nearly transcribe as it lies
before me.
In November last year [Footnote: This was written in 1799.] I receiv'd a
MS. which I was requested to read, and to give my opinion of it. It had
before been shewn to some persons in London: whose indifference
toward it may probably be explain'd when it is consider'd that it came
to their hands under no circumstances of adventitious recommendation.
With some a person must be rich, or titled, or fashionable as a literary

name, or at least fashionable in some respect, good or bad, before any
thing which he can offer will be thought worthy of notice.
I had been a little accustom'd to the effect of prejudices: and I was
determin'd to judge, in the only just and reasonable way, of the Work,
by the Work itself.
At first I confess, seeing it divided into the four Seasons, I had to
encounter a prepossession not very advantageous to any writer: that the
Author was treading in a path already so admirably trod by
THOMSON; and might be adding one more to an attempt already so
often, but so injudiciously and unhappily made, of transmuting that
noble Poem from Blank Verse into Rhime; ... from its own pure native
Gold into an alloyed Metal of incomparably less splendor, permanence,
and worth.
I had soon, however, the pleasure of finding myself reliev'd from that
apprehension: and of discovering, that, although the delineation of
RURAL SCENERY naturally branches itself into these divisions, there
was little else except the General Qualities of a musical ear, flowing
numbers, Feeling, Piety, poetic Imagery and Animation, a taste for the
picturesque, a true sense of the natural and pathetic, force of thought,
and liveliness of imagination, which were in common between
Thomson and this