FLAT on the _hearth_ the glowing embers lie, And flames reflected dance in every eye: There the long billet, forc'd at last to bend, While frothing sap gushes at either end, Throws round its welcome heat:... the ploughman smiles, And oft the joke runs hard on sheepish _Giles_, Who sits joint tenant of the corner-stool, The converse sharing, though in duty's school; For now attentively 'tis his to hear Interrogations from the Master's chair. 'LEFT ye your bleating charge, when daylight fled, 'Near where the hay-stack lifts its snowy head? 'Whose fence of bushy furze, so close and warm, 'May stop the slanting bullets of the storm. 'For, hark! it blows; a dark and dismal night: 'Heaven guide the traveller's fearful steps aright! 'Now from the woods, mistrustful and sharp-ey'd, 'The _Fox_ in silent darkness seems to glide, 'Stealing around us, list'ning as he goes, 'If chance the Cock or stamm'ring cockerel crows, 'Or Goose, or nodding Duck, should darkling cry, 'As if appriz'd of lurking danger nigh: 'Destruction waits them, _Giles_, if e'er you fail 'To bolt their doors against the driving gale. 'Strew'd you (still mindful of the unshelter'd head) 'Burdens of straw, the cattle's welcome bed? 'Thine heart should feel, what thou may'st hourly see, '_That duty's basis is humanity._ 'Of pain's unsavoury cup tho' thou may'st taste, '(The wrath of Winter from the bleak north-east,) 'Thine utmost suff'rings in the coldest day 'A period terminates, and joys repay. 'Perhaps e'en now, while here those joys we boast, 'Full many a bark rides down the neighb'ring coast, 'Where the high northern waves tremendous roar, 'Drove down by blasts from _Norway's_ icy shore. 'The _Sea-boy_ there, less fortunate than thou, 'Feels all thy pains in all the gusts that blow; 'His freezing hands now drench'd, now dry, by turns; 'Now lost, now seen, the distant light that burns, 'On some tall cliff uprais'd, a flaming guide, 'That throws its friendly radiance o'er the tide. 'His labours cease not with declining day, 'But toils and perils mark his watry way; 'And whilst in peaceful dreams secure _we_ lie, 'The ruthless whirlwinds rage along the sky, 'Round his head whistling;... and shall thou repine, 'While this protecting roof still shelters thine?' Mild, as the vernal show'r, his words prevail, And aid the moral precept of his tale: His wond'ring hearers learn, and ever keep These first ideas of the restless deep; And, as the opening mind a circuit tries, Present felicities in value rise. Increasing pleasures every hour they find, The warmth more precious, and the shelter kind; Warmth that long reigning bids the eyelids close, As through the blood its balmy influence goes, When the cheer'd heart forgets fatigues and cares, And drowsiness alone dominion bears. Sweet then the ploughman's slumbers, hale and young, When the last topic dies upon his tongue; Sweet then the bliss his transient dreams inspire, Till chilblains wake him, or the snapping fire: