II. THE FARMER OF TILSBURY VALE. [THE character of this man was described to me, and the incident upon which the verses turn, was told me by Mr. Pool of Nether Stowey, with whom I became acquainted through our common friend, S. T. Coleridge. During my residence at Alfoxden I used to see much of him and had frequent occasions to admire the course of his daily life, especially his conduct to his labourers and poor neighbours: their virtues he carefully encouraged, and weighed their faults in the scales of charity. If I seem in these verses to have treated the weaknesses of the farmer, and his transgression, too tenderly, it may in part be ascribed to my having received the story from one so averse to all harsh judgment. After his death, was found in his escritoir a lock of grey hair carefully preserved, with a notice that it had been cut from the head of his faithful shepherd, who had served him for a length of years. I need scarcely add that he felt for all men as his brothers. He was much beloved by distinguished persons-Mr. Coleridge, Mr. Southey, Sir H. Davy, and many others; and in his own neighbourhood was highly valued as a magistrate, a man of business, and in every other social relation. The latter part of the poem perhaps requires some apology as being too much of an echo to the "Reverie of Poor Susan."] 'Tis not for the unfeeling, the falsely refined, He dwells in the centre of London's wide Town; 'Mid the dews, in the sunshine of morn,-'mid the joy Of the fields, he collected that bloom, when a boy; That countenance there fashioned, which, spite of a stain That his life hath received, to the last will remain. A Farmer he was; and his house far and near Yet Adam was far as the farthest from ruin, Yet Adam prized little the feast and the bowl,— For Adam was simple in thought; and the poor, away. Thus thirty smooth years did he thrive on his farm : His means are run out, he must beg, or must borrow. To the neighbours he went,—all were free with their money; For his hive had so long been replenished with honey, That they dreamt not of dearth;-He continued his rounds, Knocked here-and knocked there, pounds still adding to pounds. He paid what he could with his ill-gotten pelf, You lift up your eyes!—but I guess that you frame To London-a sad emigration I ween— With his grey hairs he went from the brook and the green; And there, with small wealth but his legs and his hands, As lonely he stood as a crow on the sands. All trades, as need was, did old Adam assume,— Served as stable-boy, errand-boy, porter, and groom; But nature is gracious, necessity kind, And, in spite of the shame that may lurk in his mind, He seems ten birthdays younger, is green and is stout; For he's not like an Old Man that leisurely goes And you guess that the more then his body must stir. In the throng of the town like a stranger is he, This gives him the fancy of one that is young, What's a tempest to him, or the dry parching heats? Where proud Covent-garden, in desolate hours 'Mid coaches and chariots, a waggon of straw, Up the Haymarket hill he oft whistles his way, But chiefly to Smithfield he loves to repair,- Now farewell, old Adam! when low thou art laid, 1803. III. THE SMALL CELANDINE. THERE is a Flower, the lesser Celandine, When hailstones have been falling, swarm on swarm, In close self-shelter, like a Thing at rest. But lately, one rough day, this Flower I passed I stopped, and said with inly-muttered voice, The sunshine may not cheer it, nor the dew; Stiff in its members, withered, changed of hue." To be a Prodigal's Favourite then, worse truth, O Man, that from thy fair and shining youth 1804. |