The Village and The Newspaper | Page 4

murmuring
nurse, who calls
The holy stranger to these dismal walls:
And doth
not he, the pious man, appear,
He, "passing rich, with forty pounds a
year?"
Ah!no; a shepherd of a different stock,
And far unlike him,
feeds this little flock:
A jovial youth, who thinks his Sunday's task

As much as God or man can fairly ask;
The rest he gives to loves and
labours light,
To fields the morning, and to feasts the night;
None
better skill'd the noisy pack to guide,
To urge their chase, to cheer
them or to chide;
A sportsman keen, he shoots through half the day,

And, skill'd at whist, devotes the night to play:
Then, while such
honours bloom around his head,
Shall he sit sadly by the sick man's

bed,
To raise the hope he feels not, or with zeal
To combat fears
that e'en the pious, feel?
Now once again the gloomy scene explore,
Less gloomy now; the
bitter hour is o'er,
The man of many sorrows sighs no more. -
Up
yonder hill, behold how sadly slow
The bier moves winding from the
vale below:
There lie the happy dead, from trouble free,
And the
glad parish pays the frugal fee:
No more, O Death! thy victim starts
to hear
Churchwarden stern, or kingly overseer;
No more the farmer
claims his humble bow,
Thou art his lord, the best of tyrants thou!
Now to the church behold the mourners come,
Sedately torpid and
devoutly dumb;
The village children now their games suspend,
To
see the bier that bears their ancient friend:
For he was one in all their
idle sport,
And like a monarch ruled their little court;
The pliant
bow he form'd, the flying ball,
The bat, the wicket, were his labours
all;
Him now they follow to his grave, and stand,
Silent and sad,
and gazing hand in hand;
While bending low, their eager eyes explore

The mingled relics of the parish poor.
The bell tolls late, the
moping owl flies round,
Fear marks the flight and magnifies the
sound;
The busy priest, detain'd by weightier care,
Defers his duty
till the day of prayer;
And, waiting long, the crowd retire distrest,

To think a poor man's bones should lie unblest.
BOOK II--THE ARGUMENT.
There are found, amid the Evils of a laborious Life, some Views of
Tranquillity and Happiness--The Repose and Pleasure of a Summer
Sabbath: interrupted by Intoxication and Dispute--Village

Detraction--Complaints of the 'Squire--The Evening Riots--Justice--
Reasons for this unpleasant View of Rustic Life: the Effect it should
have upon the Lower Classes; and the Higher--These last have their
peculiar Distresses: Exemplified in the Life and heroic Death of Lord
Robert Manners--Concluding Address to His Grace the Duke of
Rutland.

No longer truth, though shown in verse, disdain,
But own the Village
Life a life of pain:
I too must yield, that oft amid those woes
Are
gleams of transient mirth and hours of sweet repose,
Such as you find
on yonder sportive Green,
The 'squire's tall gate and churchway-walk
between;
Where loitering stray a little tribe of friends,
On a fair
Sunday when the sermon ends:
Then rural beaux their best attire put
on,
To win their nymphs, as other nymphs are won:
While those
long wed go plain, and by degrees,
Like other husbands, quit their
care to please.
Some of the sermon talk, a sober crowd,
And loudly
praise, if it were preach'd aloud;
Some on the labours of the week
look round,
Feel their own worth, and think their toil renown'd;

While some, whose hopes to no renown extend,
Are only pleased to
find their labours end.
Thus, as their hours glide on, with pleasure fraught
Their careful
masters brood the painful thought;
Much in their mind they murmur
and lament,
That one fair day should be so idly spent;
And think
that Heaven deals hard, to tithe their store
And tax their time for
preachers and the poor.
Yet still, ye humbler friends, enjoy your hour,
This is your portion,
yet unclaim'd of power;
This is Heaven's gift to weary men oppress'd,

And seems the type of their expected rest:
But yours, alas! are joys
that soon decay;
Frail joys, begun and ended with the day;
Or yet,
while day permits those joys to reign,
The village vices drive them
from the plain.
See the stout churl, in drunken fury great,
Strike the bare bosom of
his teeming mate!
His naked vices, rude and unrefined,
Exert their
open empire o'er the mind;
But can we less the senseless rage despise,

Because the savage acts without disguise?
Yet here Disguise, the city's vice, is seen,
And Slander steals along
and taints the Green:
At her approach domestic peace is gone,


Domestic broils at her approach come on;
She to the wife the
husband's crime conveys,
She tells the husband when his consort
strays;
Her busy tongue, through all the little state,
Diffuses doubt,
suspicion, and debate;
Peace, tim'rous goddess! quits her old domain,

In sentiment and song content to reign.
Nor are the nymphs that breathe the rural air
So fair as Cynthia's, nor
so chaste as fair:
These to the town afford each fresher face,
And
the clown's trull receives the peer's embrace;
From whom, should
chance again convey her down,
The peer's disease in turn attacks the
clown.
Here too the 'squire, or