from Village Life - As It Is by George Crabbe
b"Crabbe read by Classic Poetry Aloud:\\nhttp://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/\\nGiving voice to the poetry of the past.\\n\\n---------------------------------------------\\n\\nfrom Village Life - As It Is\\nby George Crabbe (1754 \\u2013 1832)\\n\\nI grant indeed that fields and flocks have charms\\nFor him that grazes or for him that farms;\\nBut when amid such pleasing scenes I trace\\nThe poor laborious natives of the place,\\nAnd see the mid-day sun, with fervid ray,\\nOn their bare heads and dewy temples play;\\nWhile some with feebler heads and fainter hearts,\\nDeplore their fortune, yet sustain their parts:\\nThen shall I dare these real ills to hide\\nIn tinsel trappings of poetic pride?\\n\\nNo; cast by Fortune on a frowning coast,\\nWhich neither groves nor happy valleys boast;\\nWhere other cares than those the Muse relates,\\nAnd other shepherds dwell with other mates;\\nBy such examples taught, I paint the Cot,\\nAs Truth will paint it, and as Bards will not:\\nNor you, ye poor, of letter'd scorn complain,\\nTo you the smoothest song is smooth in vain;\\nO'ercome by labour, and bow'd down by time,\\nFeel you the barren flattery of a rhyme?\\nCan poets soothe you, when you pine for bread,\\nBy winding myrtles round your ruin'd shed?\\nCan their light tales your weighty griefs o'erpower\\nOr glad with airy mirth the toilsome hour?\\n\\nLo! where the heath, with withering brake grown o'er,\\nLends the light turf that warms the neighbouring poor;\\nFrom thence a length of burning sand appears,\\nWhere the thin harvest waves its wither'd ears;\\nRank weeds, that every art and care defy,\\nReign o'er the land, and rob the blighted rye:\\nThere thistles stretch their prickly arms afar,\\nAnd to the ragged infant threaten war;\\nThere poppies nodding, mock the hope of toil;\\nThere the blue bugloss paints the sterile soil;\\nHardy and high, above the slender sheaf,\\nThe slimy mallow waves her silky leaf;\\nO'er the young shoot the charlock throws a shade,\\nAnd clasping tares cling round the sickly blade;\\nWith mingled tints the rocky coasts abound,\\nAnd a sad splendour vainly shines around.\\nSo looks the nymph whom wretched arts adorn,\\nBetray'd by man, then left for man to scorn;\\nWhose cheek in vain assumes the mimic rose,\\nWhile her sad eyes the troubled breast disclose;\\nWhose outward splendour is but folly's dress,\\nExposing most, when most it gilds distress.\\n\\nHere joyous roam a wild amphibious race,\\nWith sullen woe display'd in every face;\\nWho, far from civil arts and social fly,\\nAnd scowl at strangers with suspicious eye.\\n\\n\\nhttp://www.gradesaver.com/classicnotes/titles/crabbe/essay1.html\\n\\nAbout George Crabbe:\\nhttp://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/1/1/0/8/11088/11088.htm"