IV. THE TWO THIEVES; OR, THE LAST STAGE OF AVARICE. [THIS is described from the life, as I was in the habit of observing when a boy at Hawkshead School. Daniel was more than eighty years older than myself when he was daily, thus occupied, under my notice. No book could have so early taught me to think of the changes to which human life is subject; and while looking at him I could not but say to myself-we may, one of us, I or the happiest of my playmates, live to become still more the object of pity than this old man, this half-doating pilferer!] O NOW that the genius of Bewick were mine, And the skill which he learned on the banks of the Tyne, Then the Muses might deal with me just as they chose, For I'd take my last leave both of verse and of prose. What feats would I work with my magical hand! Book-learning and books should be banished the land: And, for hunger and thirst and such troublesome calls, Every ale-house should then have a feast on its walls. The traveller would hang his wet clothes on a chair; Let them smoke, let them burn, not a straw would he care! For the Prodigal Son, Joseph's Dream and his sheaves, Oh, what would they be to my tale of two Thieves? The One, yet unbreeched, is not three birthdays old, With chips is the carpenter strewing his floor? Old Daniel begins; he stops short-and his eye, He once had a heart which was moved by the wires 'Twas a path trod by thousands; but Daniel is one The pair sally forth hand in hand: ere the sun They hunt through the streets with deliberate tread, Neither checked by the rich nor the needy they roam; For the grey-headed Sire has a daughter at home, Who will gladly repair all the damage that's done; And three, were it asked, would be rendered for one. Old Man! whom so oft I with pity have eyed, 1800. V. ANIMAL TRANQUILLITY AND DECAY. THE little hedgerow birds, That peck along the roads, regard him not. 1798. EPITAPHS AND ELEGIAC PIECES. [THOSE from Chiabrera were chiefly translated when Mr. Coleridge was writing his "Friend," in which periodical my "Essay on Epitaphs," written about that time, was first published. For further notice of Chiabrera, in connection with his Epitaphs, see "Musings at Aquapendente."] EPITAPHS TRANSLATED FROM CHIABRERA. I. WEEP not, belovèd Friends! nor let the air In peace eternal; where desire and joy His tombstone thus should speak for him. And surely Long to continue in this world; a world That keeps not faith, nor yet can point a hop To good, whereof itself is destitute. II. PERHAPS Some needful service of the State And doomed him to contend in faithless courts, And his pure native genius, lead him back To Arno's side hath brought him, and he charmed III. O THOU who movest onward with a mind Intent upon thy way, pause, though in haste! * Ivi vivea giocondo e i suoi pensieri Erano tutti rose. The Translator had not skill to come nearer to his original. |