The Village and The Newspaper | Page 4

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 'squire-like farmer, talk,?How round their regions nightly pilferers walk;?How from their ponds the fish are borne, and all?The rip'ning treasures from their lofty wall;?How meaner rivals in their sports delight,?Just right enough to claim a doubtful right;?Who take a licence round their fields to stray,?A mongrel race! the poachers of