II. THE FARMER OF TILSBURY VALE. '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, His fields seemed to know what their Master was doing; Yet Adam prized little the feast and the bowl,— He strayed through the fields like an indolent wight, For Adam was simple in thought; and the poor, Thus thirty smooth years did he thrive on his farm : 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; Twice as fast as before does his blood run about; You would say that each hair of his beard was alive, And his fingers are busy as bees in a hive. 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, And tears of fifteen will come into his eyes. 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, III. THE SMALL CELANDINE. THERE is a Flower, the lesser Celandine, That shrinks, like many more, from cold and rain, And, the first moment that the sun may shine, Bright as the sun himself, 'tis out again! When hailstones have been falling, swarm on swarm, Or blasts the green field and the trees distrest, Oft have I seen it muffled up from harm, 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, But its necessity in being old. |