The Parish Register | Page 3

detain us long,?But vice and misery now demand the song;?And turn our view from dwellings simply neat,?To this infected Row, we term our Street.
Here, in cabal, a disputatious crew?Each evening meet; the sot, the cheat, the shrew;?Riots are nightly heard: --the curse, the cries?Of beaten wife, perverse in her replies;?While shrieking children hold each threat'ning hand,?And sometimes life, and sometimes food demand:?Boys, in their first-stol'n rags, to swear begin,?And girls, who heed not dress, are skill'd in gin:?Snarers and smugglers here their gains divide;?Ensnaring females here their victims hide;?And here is one, the Sibyl of the Row,?Who knows all secrets, or affects to know.?Seeking their fate, to her the simple run,?To her the guilty, theirs awhile to shun;?Mistress of worthless arts, depraved in will,?Her care unblest and unrepaid her skill,?Slave to the tribe, to whose command she stoops,?And poorer than the poorest maid she dupes.
Between the road-way and the walls, offence?Invades all eyes and strikes on every sense;?There lie, obscene, at every open door,?Heaps from the hearth, and sweepings from the floor,?And day by day the mingled masses grow,?As sinks are disembogued and kennels flow.
There hungry dogs from hungry children steal;?There pigs and chickens quarrel for a meal;?Their dropsied infants wail without redress,?And all is want and woe and wretchedness;?Yet should these boys, with bodies bronzed and bare,?High-swoln and hard, outlive that lack of care -?Forced on some farm, the unexerted strength,?Though loth to action, is compell'd at length,?When warm'd by health, as serpents in the spring,?Aside their slough of indolence they fling.
Yet, ere they go, a greater evil comes -?See! crowded beds in those contiguous rooms;?Beds but ill parted, by a paltry screen?Of paper'd lath, or curtain dropt between;?Daughters and sons to yon compartments creep,?And parents here beside their children sleep:?Ye who have power, these thoughtless people part,?Nor let the ear be first to taint the heart.
Come! search within, nor sight nor smell regard;?The true physician walks the foulest ward.?See on the floor, where frousy patches rest!?What nauseous fragments on yon fractured chest!?What downy dust beneath yon window-seat!?And round these posts that serve this bed for feet;?This bed where all those tatter'd garments lie,?Worn by each sex, and now perforce thrown by!
See! as we gaze, an infant lifts its head,?Left by neglect and burrow'd in that bed;?The Mother-gossip has the love suppress'd?An infant's cry once waken'd in her breast;?And daily prattles, as her round she takes?(With strong resentment), of the want she makes.
Whence all these woes?--From want of virtuous will,?Of honest shame, of time-improving skill;?From want of care t'employ the vacant hour,?And want of every kind but want of power.
Here are no wheels for either wool or flax,?But packs of cards--made up of sundry packs;?Here is no clock, nor will they turn the glass,?And see how swift th' important moments pass;?Here are no books, but ballads on the wall,?Are some abusive, and indecent all;?Pistols are here, unpair'd; with nets and hooks,?Of every kind, for rivers, ponds, and brooks;?An ample flask, that nightly rovers fill?With recent poison from the Dutchman's still;?A box of tools, with wires of various size,?Frocks, wigs, and hats, for night or day disguise,?And bludgeons stout to gain or guard a prize.
To every house belongs a space of ground,?Of equal size, once fenced with paling round;?That paling now by slothful waste destroyed,?Dead gorse and stumps of elder fill the void;?Save in the centre-spot, whose walls of clay?Hide sots and striplings at their drink or play:?Within, a board, beneath a tiled retreat,?Allures the bubble and maintains the cheat;?Where heavy ale in spots like varnish shows,?Where chalky tallies yet remain in rows;?Black pipes and broken jugs the seats defile,?The walls and windows, rhymes and reck'nings vile;?Prints of the meanest kind disgrace the door,?And cards, in curses torn, lie fragments on the floor.
Here his poor bird th' inhuman Cocker brings,?Arms his hard heel and clips his golden wings;?With spicy food th' impatient spirit feeds,?And shouts and curses as the battle bleeds.?Struck through the brain, deprived of both his eyes,?The vanquished bird must combat till he dies;?Must faintly peck at his victorious foe,?And reel and stagger at each feeble blow:?When fallen, the savage grasps his dabbled plumes,?His blood-stain'd arms, for other deaths assumes;?And damns the craven-fowl, that lost his stake,?And only bled and perished for his sake.
Such are our Peasants, those to whom we yield?Praise with relief, the fathers of the field;?And these who take from our reluctant hands?What Burn advises or the Bench commands.
Our Farmers round, well pleased with constant gain,?Like other farmers, flourish and complain. -?These are our groups; our Portraits next appear,?And close our Exhibition for the year.

WITH evil omen we that year begin:?A Child of Shame,--stern Justice adds, of Sin,?Is first recorded;--I would hide the deed,?But vain the wish; I sigh, and I proceed:?And could I well th'instructive truth convey,?'Twould warn the giddy and awake the gay.
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