Of needle-work; no bustle at the fire, Where once the dinner was prepared with pride; Nothing to speed the day, or cheer the mind; Nothing to praise, to teach, or to command! The Father, if perchance he still retain His old employments, goes to field or wood, No longer led or followed by the Sons; Idlers perchance they were, but in his sight; Breathing fresh air, and treading the green earth: 'Till their short holiday of childhood ceased, Ne'er to return! That birthright now is lost. Economists will tell you that the State Thrives by the forfeiture-unfeeling thought, And false as monstrous! Can the mother thrive By the destruction of her innocent sons In whom a premature necessity Blocks out the forms of nature, preconsumes The reason, famishes the heart, shuts up And thirst for change; or habit hath subdued Oh, banish far such wisdom as condemns A native Briton to these inward chains, Fixed in his soul, so early and so deep; Without his own consent, or knowledge, fixed! Among the clouds, and roars through the ancient woods; Quiet and calm. Behold him-in the school And scarcely could you fancy that a gleam Is that the countenance, and such the port, Is Of no mean Being? One who should be clothed Of what there is delightful in the breeze, Or lapse of liquid element-by hand, Or foot, or lip, in summer's warmth-perceived. (6 Hope is none for him!" The pale Recluse indignantly exclaimed, If there were not, before those arts appeared, Or wearing, (shall we say?) in that white growth Or fierceness, wreathed around their sun-burnt brows, By savage Nature? Shrivelled are their lips; Naked, and coloured like the soil, the feet On which they stand; as if thereby they drew From earth, the common mother of us all. Are leagued to strike dismay; but outstretched hand Such on the breast of darksome heaths are found; Of furze-clad commons; such are born and reared In forest purlieus; and the like are bred, All England through, where nooks and slips of ground Purloined, in times less jealous than our own, From the green margin of the public way, A residence afford them, 'mid the bloom And gaiety of cultivated fields. Such (we will hope the lowest in the scale) Do I remember oft-times to have seen 'Mid Buxton's dreary heights. In earnest watch, Heels over head, like tumblers on a stage. -Up from the ground they snatch the copper coin, And, on the freight of merry passengers Fixing a steady eye, maintain their speed; And spin-and pant-and overhead again, Wild pursuivants! until their breath is lost, Turn we then To Britons born and bred within the pale To earn, by wholesome labour in the field, The tender age of life, ye would exclaim, Is this the whistling plough-boy whose shrill notes That many, sweet to hear of in soft verse, Under whose shaggy canopy are set Two eyes-not dim, but of a healthy stare Wide, sluggish, blank, and ignorant, and strange-Proclaiming boldly that they never drew A look or motion of intelligence From infant-conning of the Christ-cross-row, |