And weekly hunts the almanacks for rain. Here and no further learning's channels ran; Still, neighbours prize him as the learned man. His cottage is a humble place of rest With one spare room to welcome every guest, And that tall poplar pointing to the sky His own hand planted when an idle boy, It shades his chimney while the singing wind Hums songs of shelter to his happy mind. Within his cot the largest ears of corn He ever found his picture frames adorn: Brave Granby's head, De Grosse's grand defeat; He rubs his hands and shows how Rodney beat. And from the rafters upon strings depend Beanstalks beset with pods from end to end, Whose numbers without counting may be seen Wrote on the almanack behind the screen. Around the corner up on worsted strung Pooties in wreaths above the cupboard hung. Memory at trifling incidents awakes And there he keeps them for his children's sakes, Who when as boys searched every sedgy lane, Traced every wood and shattered clothes again, Roaming about on rapture's easy wing To hunt those very pooty shells in spring. And thus he lives too happy to be poor While strife neer pauses at so mean a door. Low in the sheltered valley stands his cot, He hears the mountain storm and feels it not; Winter and spring, toil ceasing ere tis dark, Rests with the lamb and rises with the lark, Content his helpmate to the day's employ And care neer comes to steal a single joy. Time, scarcely noticed, turns his hair to grey, Yet leaves him happy as a child at play. _Insects_ These tiny loiterers on the barley's beard, And happy units of a numerous herd Of playfellows, the laughing Summer brings, Mocking the sunshine in their glittering wings, How merrily they creep, and run, and fly! No kin they bear to labour's drudgery, Smoothing the velvet of the pale hedge-rose; And where they fly for dinner no one knows-- The dew-drops feed them not--they love the shine Of noon, whose sun may bring them golden wine. All day they're playing in their Sunday dress-- Till night goes sleep, and they can do no less; Then, to the heath bell's silken hood they fly, And like to princes in their slumbers lie, Secure from night, and dropping dews, and all, In silken beds and roomy painted hall. So merrily they spend their summer day, Now in the cornfields, now the new-mown hay. One almost fancies that such happy things, With coloured hoods and richly burnished wings, Are fairy folk, in splendid masquerade Disguised, as if of mortal folk afraid, Keeping their merry pranks a mystery still, Lest glaring day should do their secrets ill. _Sudden Shower_