THE FARMER OF TILSBURY VALE.
'Tis not for th' unfeeling, the falsely refined,
The squeamish in taste, and the narrow of mind,
And the small critic wielding his delicate pen,
That I sing of old Adam, the pride of old men.
He dwells in the centre of London's wide town;
His staff is a sceptre-his grey hairs a crown;
Erect as a sunflower he stands, and the streak
Of the unfaded rose is expressed on his cheek.
'Mid the dews, in the sunshine of morn,-'mid the joy
Of the fields, he collected that bloom, when a boy;
There fashioned that countenance, which, in spite of a stain That his life hath received, to the last will remain.
A farmer he was; and his house far and near
Was the boast of the country for excellent cheer:
How oft have I heard, in sweet Tilsbury Vale,
Of the silver-rimmed horn whence he dealt his good ale.
Yet Adam was far as the furthest from ruin,
His fields seemed to know what their master was doing;
And turnips, and corn-land, and meadow, and lea,
All caught the infection-as generous as he.
Yet Adam prized little the feast and the bowl,-
The fields better suited the ease of his soul:
He strayed through the fields like an indolent wight,
The quiet of Nature was Adam's delight.
For Adam was simple in thought, and the poor,
Familiar with him, made an inn of his door :
He gave them the best that he had; or, to say
What less may mislead you-they took it away.
Thus thirty smooth years did he thrive on his farm;
The genius of plenty preserved him from harm:
At length, what to most is a season of sorrow,
His means are run out,-he must beg, or must borrow.
To the neighbours he went,-all were free with their money;
For his hive had so long been replenished with honey
. That they dreamt not of dearth. He continued his rounds, Knocked here, and knocked there-pounds still adding to pounds.
He paid what he could with this ill-gotten pelf,
And something, it might be, reserved for himself:
Then (what is too true), without hinting a word,
Turned his back on the country; and off like a bird.
You lift up your eyes! and I guess that you frame
A judgment too harsh of the sin and the shame;
In him it was scarcely a business of art,
For this he did all in the ease of his heart.
To London-a sad emigration I ween--
With his grey hairs he went from the brook and the green;
And there, with small wealth but his legs and his bands,
As lonely he stood as a crow on the sands.
All trades, as needs was, did old Adam assume,—
Served as stable-boy, errand-boy, porter, and groom;
But Nature is gracious, necessity kind,
And, in spite of the shame that may lurk in his mind,
He seems ten birth-days younger, is green and is stout;
Twice as fast as before does his blood run about;
You would say that each hair of his beard was alive,
And his fingers are busy as bees in a hive.
For he's not like an old man that leisurely goes
A bout work that he knows, in a track that he knows;
But often his mind is compelled to demur,
And you guess that the more then his body must stir.
In the throng of the town like a stranger is he,
Like one whose own country's far over the sea;
And Nature, while through the great city he hies,
Full ten times a day takes his heart by surprise.
This gives him the fancy of one that is young,
More of soul in his face than of words on his tongue;
Like a maiden of twenty he trembles and sighs,
And tears of fifteen have come into his eyes.
What's a tempest to him, or the dry parching heats?
Yet he watches the clouds that pass over the streets;
With a look of such earnestness often will stand,
You might think he'd twelve reapers at work in the Strand
Where proud Covent Garden, in desolate hours
Of snow and hoar-frost, spreads her fruit and her flowers,
Old Adam will smile at the pains that have made
Poor Winter look fine in such strange masquerade.
'Mid coaches and chariots, a waggon of straw,
Like a magnet, the heart of old Adam can draw;
With a thousand soft pictures his memory will team,
And his hearing is touched with the sounds of a dream.
Up the Haymarket hill he oft whistles his way,
Thrusts his hands in the waggon, and smells at the hay;
He thinks of the fields he so often hath mown,
And is happy as if the rich freight were his own.
But chiefly to Smithfield he loves to repair,-
If you pass by at morning you'll meet with him there:
The breath of the cows you may see him inhale,
And his heart all the while is in Tilsbury Vale.
Now farewell, old Adam! when low thou art laid,
May one blade of grass spring up over thy head;
And I hope that thy grave, wheresoever it be,
Will hear the wind sigh through the leaves of a tree.
THERE is a flower, the Lesser Celandine,
That shrinks, like many more, from cold and rain;
And, the first moment that the sun may shine,
Bright as the sun itself, 'tis out again!
When hailstones have been falling, swarm and swarm,
Or blasts the green field and the trees distressed,
Oft have I seen it muffled up from harm,
In close self-shelter, like a thing at rest.
But lately, one rough day, this flower I passed,
And recognised it, though an altered form,
Now standing forth an offering to the blast,
And buffeted at will by rain and storm.
I stopped, and said, with inly-muttered voice,
"It doth not love the shower, nor seek the cold:
This neither is its courage nor its choice,
But its necessity in being old.
"The sunshine may not bless it, nor the dew;
It cannot help itself in its decay;
Stiff in its members, withered, changed of hue."
And in my spleen, I smiled that it was gray.
To be a prodigal's favourite-then, worse truth,
A miser's pensioner-behold our lot!
O man! that from thy fair and shining youth
Age might but take the things youth needed not!
ANIMAL TRANQUILLITY AND DECAY.
THE little hedge-row birds,
That peck along the road, regard him not.
He travels on, and in his face, his step.
His gait, is one expression; every limb,
His look and bending figure, all bespeak
A man who does not move with pain, but moves
With thought. He is insensibly subdued
To settled quiet he is one by whom
All effort seems forgotten; one to whom
Long patience hath such mild composure given,
That patience now doth seem a thing of which
He hath no need. He is by Nature led
To peace so perfect, that the young behold
With envy, what the old man hardly feels.
THE TWO THIEVES; OR, THE LAST STAGE OF AVARICE.
O NOW that the genius of Berwick were mine,
And the skill which he learned on the banks of the Tyne
Then the muses might deal with me just as they chose,
For I'd take my last leave both of verse and of prose.
What feats would I work with my magical hand!
Book-learning and books should be banished the land:
And for hunger and thirst, and such troublesome calls,
Every ale-house should then have a feast on its walls,
The traveller would hang his wet clothes on a chair;
Let them smoke, let them burn, not a straw would he care!
For the Prodigal Son, Joseph's Dream and his Sheaves,
Oh, what would they be to my tale of Two Thieves?
Little Dan is unbreeched, he is three birth-days old,
His grandsire that age more than thirty times told;
There are ninety good seasons of fair and foul weather
Between them-and both go a-stealing together.
With chips is the carpenter strewing his floor-
Is a cart-load of peats at an old woman's door-
Old Daniel his hand to the treasure will slide,
And his grandson's as busy at work by his side!
Old Daniel begins, he stops short-and his eye,
Through the lost look of dotage, is cunning and sly,
'Tis a look which at this time is hardly his own,
But tells a plain tale of the days that are flown.
Dan once had a heart which was moved by the wires
Of manifold pleasures and many desires:
And what if he cherished his purse? 'Twas no more
Than treading a path trod by thousands before.
'Twas a path trod by thousands; but Daniel is one
Who went something further than others have gone :
And now with old Daniel you see how it fares;
You see to what end he has brought his grey hairs.
The pair sally forth hand in hand: ere the sun
Has peered o'er the beeches their work is begun;
And yet, into whatever sin they may fall,
This child but half knows it, and that not at all.
They hunt through the streets with deliberate tread,
And each, in his turn, is both leader and led;
And wherever they carry their plots and their wiles,
Every face in the village is dimpled with smiles.
Neither checked by the rich nor the needy they roam;
For grey-headed Dan has a daughter at home,
Who will gladly repair all the damage that's done:
And three, were it asked, would be rendered for one.
Old man! whom so oft I with pity have eyed,
I love thee, and love the sweet boy at thy side:
Long yet mayst thou live! for a teacher we see
That lifts up the veil of our nature, in thee.
THE MATRON OF JEDBURGH AND HER HUSBAND.
At Jedburgh, in the course of a tour in Scotland, my companion and I went into private lodgings for a few days; and the following verses were called forth by the character and domestic situation of our hostess.
AGE! twine thy brows with fresh spring flowers!
And call a train of laughing hours!
And bid them dance, and bid them sing;
And thou, too, mingle in the ring!
Take to thy heart a new delight;
If not, make merry in despite !
For there is one who scorns thy power;
But dance! for, under Jedburgh Tower,
There liveth, in the prime of glee,
A woman, whose years are seventy-three,
And she will dance and sing with thee.
Nay, start not at that figure, there!
Him who is rooted to his chair-
Look at him-look again! for he
Hath long been of thy family.
With legs that move not, if they can,
And useless arms, a trunk of man,
He sits; and with a vacant eye;
A sight to make a stranger sigh!
Deaf, drooping, that is now his doom:
His world is in this single room.
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