That countenance there fashioned, which, spite of a stain That his life hath received, to the last will remain. A Farmer he was; and his house far and near Yet Adam was far as the farthest from ruin, Yet Adam prized little the feast and the bowl,- For Adam was simple in thought; and the poor, Thus thirty smooth years did he thrive on his farm: 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 his ill-gotten pelf, You lift up your eyes!—but I guess that you frame 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 hands, As lonely he stood as a crow on the sands. All trades, as need 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 birthdays younger, is green and is stout; For he's not like an Old Man that leisurely goes And you guess that the more then his body must stir. In the throng of the town like a stranger is he, This gives him the fancy of one that is young, More of soul in his face than of words on his tongue; What's a tempest to him, or the dry parching heats ? Where proud Covent-garden, in desolate hours Of snow and hoar-frost, spreads her fruits and her flowers, 'Mid coaches and chariots, a waggon of straw, Up the Haymarket hill he oft whistles his way, But chiefly to Smithfield he loves to repair,- Now farewell, old Adam! when low thou art laid, 1803. III. THE SMALL CELANDINE. THERE is a Flower, the lesser Celandine, When hailstones have been falling, swarm on swarm, But lately, one rough day, this Flower I passed I stopped, and said with inly-muttered voice, The sunshine may not cheer it, nor the dew; Stiff in its members, withered, changed of hue." To be a Prodigal's Favourite then, worse truth, O Man, that from thy fair and shining youth IV. THE TWO THIEVES; OR, THE LAST STAGE OF AVARICE. [THIS is described from the life, as I was in the habit of observing when a boy at Hawkshead School. Daniel was more than eighty years older than myself when he was daily, thus occupied, under my notice. No book could have so early taught me to think of the changes to which human life is subject; and while looking at him I could not but say to myself—we may, one of us, I or the happiest of my playmates, live to become still more the object of pity than this old man, this half-doating pilferer!] O NOW that the genius of Bewick 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 ? |