But poverty with most, who whimper forth Their long complaints, is self-inflicted woe, The effect of laziness or sottish waste.
Now goes the nightly thief prowling abroad For plunder; much solicitous how best He may compensate for a day of sloth, By works of darkness and nocturnal wrong, Woe to the gardener's pale, the farmer's hedge Plashed neatly and secured with driven stakes Deep in the loamy bank. Uptorn by strength Resistless in so bad a cause, but lame To better deeds, he bundles up the spoil--An ass's burden,--and when laden most And heaviest, light of foot steals fast away.
Nor does the boarded hovel better guard The well-stacked pile of riven logs and roots From his pernicious force. Nor will he leave Unwrenched the door, however well secured, Where chanticleer amidst his harem sleeps In unsuspecting pomp; twitched from the perch He gives the princely bird with all his wives To his voracious bag, struggling in vain, And loudly wondering at the sudden change.
Nor this to feed his own. 'Twere some excuse Did pity of their sufferings warp aside His principle, and tempt him into sin For their support, so destitute; but they Neglected pine at home, themselves, as more Exposed than others, with less scruple made His victims, robbed of their defenceless all.
Cruel is all he does. 'Tis quenchless thirst Of ruinous ebriety that prompts His every action, and imbrutes the man.
Oh for a law to noose the villain's neck Who starves his own; who persecutes the blood He gave them in his children's veins, and hates And wrongs the woman he has sworn to love.
Pass where we may, through city, or through town, Village or hamlet of this merry land, Though lean and beggared, every twentieth pace Conducts the unguarded nose to such a whiff Of stale debauch, forth-issuing from the styes That law has licensed, as makes temperance reel.
There sit involved and lost in curling clouds Of Indian fume, and guzzling deep, the boor, The lackey, and the groom. The craftsman there Takes a Lethean leave of all his toil;Smith, cobbler, joiner, he that plies the shears, And he that kneads the dough: all loud alike, All learned, and all drunk. The fiddle screams Plaintive and piteous, as it wept and wailed Its wasted tones and harmony unheard;Fierce the dispute, whate'er the theme; while she, Fell Discord, arbitress of such debate, Perched on the sign-post, holds with even hand Her undecisive scales. In this she lays A weight of ignorance, in that, of pride, And smiles delighted with the eternal poise.
Dire is the frequent curse and its twin sound The cheek-distending oath, not to be praised As ornamental, musical, polite, Like those which modern senators employ, Whose oath is rhetoric, and who swear for fame.
Behold the schools in which plebeian minds, Once simple, are initiated in arts Which some may practise with politer grace, But none with readier skill! 'Tis here they learn The road that leads from competence and peace To indigence and rapine; till at last Society, grown weary of the load, Shakes her encumbered lap, and casts them out.
But censure profits little. Vain the attempt To advertise in verse a public pest, That, like the filth with which the peasant feeds His hungry acres, stinks and is of use.
The excise is fattened with the rich result Of all this riot; and ten thousand casks, For ever dribbling out their base contents, Touched by the Midas finger of the state, Bleed gold for Ministers to sport away.
Drink and be mad then; 'tis your country bids!
Gloriously drunk, obey the important call, Her cause demands the assistance of your throats;--Ye all can swallow, and she asks no more.
Would I had fallen upon those happier days That poets celebrate; those golden times And those Arcadian scenes that Maro sings, And Sidney, warbler of poetic prose.
Nymphs were Dianas then, and swains had hearts That felt their virtues. Innocence, it seems, From courts dismissed, found shelter in the groves;The footsteps of simplicity, impressed Upon the yielding herbage (so they sing), Then were not all effaced. Then speech profane And manners profligate were rarely found, Observed as prodigies, and soon reclaimed.
Vain wish! those days were never: airy dreams Sat for the picture; and the poet's hand, Imparting substance to an empty shade, Imposed a gay delirium for a truth.
Grant it: I still must envy them an age That favoured such a dream, in days like these Impossible, when virtue is so scarce That to suppose a scene where she presides Is tramontane, and stumbles all belief.
No. We are polished now. The rural lass, Whom once her virgin modesty and grace, Her artless manners and her neat attire, So dignified, that she was hardly less Than the fair shepherdess of old romance, Is seen no more. The character is lost.
Her head adorned with lappets pinned aloft And ribbons streaming gay, superbly raised And magnified beyond all human size, Indebted to some smart wig-weaver's hand For more than half the tresses it sustains;Her elbows ruffled, and her tottering form Ill propped upon French heels; she might be deemed (But that the basket dangling on her arm Interprets her more truly) of a rank Too proud for dairy-work, or sale of eggs;Expect her soon with foot-boy at her heels, No longer blushing for her awkward load, Her train and her umbrella all her care.
The town has tinged the country; and the stain Appears a spot upon a vestal's robe, The worse for what it soils. The fashion runs Down into scenes still rural, but alas, Scenes rarely graced with rural manners now.
Time was when in the pastoral retreat The unguarded door was safe; men did not watch To invade another's right, or guard their own.
