THE SHEPHERD BOY. The rain was pattering o’er the low thatch’d shed That gave us shelter. There was a shepherd boy, Stretching his lazy limbs on the rough straw, In vacant happiness. A tatter’d sack Cover’d his sturdy loins, while his rude legs Were deck’d with uncouth patches of all hues, Iris and jet, through which his sun-burnt skin Peep’d forth in dainty contrast. He was a glory For painter’s eye; and his quaint draperies Would harmonize with some fair sylvan scene, Where arching groves, and flower-embroider’d banks, Verdant with thymy grass, tempted the sheep To scramble up their height, while he, reclin’d Upon the pillowing moss, lay listlessly Through the long summer’s day. Not such as he, In plains of Thessaly, as poets feign, Went piping forth at the first gleam of morn, And in their bowering thickets dreamt of joy, And innocence, and love. Let the true lay Speak thus of the poor hind:--His indolent gaze Reck’d not of natural beauties; his delights Were gross and sensual: not the glorious sun, Rising above his hills, and lighting up His woods and pastures with a joyous beam, To him was grandeur; not the reposing sound Of tinkling flocks cropping the tender shoots, To him was music; not the blossomy breeze That slumbers in the honey-dropping bean-flower, To him was fragrance: he went plodding on His long-accustomed path; and when his cares Of daily duties were o’erpass’d, he ate, And laugh’d, and slept, with a most drowsy mind. Dweller in cities, scorn’st thou the shepherd boy, Who never look’d within to find the eye For Nature’s glories? Know, his slumbering spirit Struggled to pierce the fogs and deepening mists Of rustic ignorance; but he was bound With a harsh galling chain, and so he went Grovelling along his dim instinctive way. Yet _thou_ hadst other hopes and other thoughts, But the world spoil’d thee: then the mutable clouds, And doming skies, and glory-shedding sun, And tranquil stars that hung above thy head Like angels gazing on thy crowded path, To thee were worthless, and thy soul forsook The love of beauteous fields, and the blest lore That man may read in Nature’s book of truth. Despise not, then, the lazy shepherd boy: For his account and thine shall be made up, And evil cherish’d and occasion lost May cast their load upon thee, while his spirit May bud and bloom in a more sunny sphere.