At even’s hour, the truce of toil, ’tis sweet The sons of labour at their ease to meet, On piled bench, beside the cottage door, Made up of mud and stones and sodded o’er; Where rustic taste at leisure trimly weaves The rose and straggling woodbine to the eaves,-- And on the crowded spot that pales enclose The white and scarlet daisy rears in rows,-- Training the trailing peas in bunches neat, Perfuming evening with a luscious sweet,-- And sun-flowers planting for their gilded show, That scale the window’s lattice ere they blow, Then sweet to habitants within the sheds, Peep through the diamond pane their golden heads: Or at the shop where ploughs and harrows lie, Well-known to every child that passes by From shining fragments littering on the floor; And branded letter burnt upon the door, Where meddling boys, the torment of the street, In hard-burnt cinders ready weapons meet, To pelt the martins ’neath the eves at rest That oft are wak’d to mourn a ruin’d nest; Or sparrows, that delight their nests to leave, In dust to flutter at the cool of eve. For such-like scenes the gossip leaves her home, And sons of labour light their pipes, and come To talk of wages, whether high or low, And mumble news that still as secrets go; When, heedless then to all the rest may say, The beckoning lover nods the maid away, And at a distance many an hour they seem In jealous whisperings o’er their pleasing theme; While children round them teasing sports prolong, To twirl the top, or bounce the hoop along, Or shout across the street their “one catch all,” Or prog the hous’d bee from the cotter’s wall. Now at the parish cottage wall’d with dirt, Where all the cumber-grounds of life resort, From the low door that bows two props between, Some feeble tottering dame surveys the scene; By them reminded of the long-lost day When she herself was young, and went to play; And, turning to the painful scenes again, The mournful changes she has meet since then, Her aching heart, the contrast moves so keen, E’en sighs a wish that life had never been. Still vainly sinning, while she strives to pray, Half-smother’d discontent pursues its way In whispering Providence, how blest she’d been If life’s last troubles she’d escap’d unseen; If, ere want sneak’d for grudg’d support from pride, She had but shar’d of childhood’s joys, and died. And as to talk some passing neighbours stand, And shove their box within her tottering hand, She turns from echoes of her younger years, And nips the portion of her snuff with tears. RUSTIC FISHING