I grant indeed that fields and flocks have charms For him that grazes or for him that farms; But when amid such pleasing scenes I trace The poor laborious natives of the place, And see the mid-day sun with fervid ray On their bare heads and dewy temples play, While some, with feebler heads and fainter hearts Deplore their fortune yet sustain their parts, Then shall I dare these real ills to hide In tinsel trappings of poetic pride? No; cast by Fortune on a frowning coast, Which neither groves nor happy valleys boast; Where other cares than those the Muse relates, And other shepherds dwell with other mates; By such examples taught, I paint the cot As Truth will paint it and as bards will not. Nor you, ye poor, of lettered scorn complain: To you the smoothest song is smooth in vain; O'ercome by labour and bowed down by time, Feel you the barren flattery of a rhyme? Can poets soothe you, when you pine for bread, By winding myrtles round your ruined shed? Can their light tales your weighty griefs o'erpower, Or glad with airy mirth the toilsome hour? Lo! where the heath, with withering brake grown o'er, Lends the light turf that warms the neighbouring poor; From thence a length of burning sand appears, Where the thin harvest waves its withered ears; Rank weeds, that every art and care defy, Reign o'er the land and rob the blighted rye: There thistles stretch their prickly arms afar, And to the ragged infant threaten war; There poppies nodding, mock the hope of toil; There the blue bugloss paints the sterile soil; Hardy and high, above the slender sheaf, The slimy mallow waves her silky leaf; O'er the young shoot the charlock throws a shade, And clasping tares cling round the sickly blade; With mingled tints the rocky coasts abound, And a sad splendour vainly shines around. * * * * * Here, wandering long, amid these frowning fields, I sought the simple life that Nature yields: Rapine and Wrong and Fear usurped her place, And a bold, artful, surly, savage race; Who, only skilled to take the finny tribe, The yearly dinner, or septennial bribe, Wait on the shore, and, as the waves run high, On the tossed vessel bend their eager eye, Which to their coast directs its venturous way; Theirs or the ocean's miserable prey. As on their neighbouring beach yon swallows stand, And wait for favouring winds to leave the land; While still for flight the ready wing is spread: So waited I the favouring hour, and fled; Fled from these shores where guilt and famine reign, And cried, 'Ah! hapless they who still remain: Who still remain to hear the ocean roar, Whose greedy waves devour the lessening shore; Till some fierce tide, with more imperious sway Sweeps the low hut and all it holds away; When the sad tenant weeps from door to door, And begs a poor protection from the poor!'