<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=395941" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Village (book 2)</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Argument</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There are found amid the Evils of a Laborious Life, some Views of Tranquillity and Happiness. - The Repose and Pleasure of a Summer Sabbath: interrupted by Intoxication and Dispute. - Village Detraction. - Complaints of the Squire. - The Evening Riots. - Justice. - Reasons for this unpleasant View of Rustic Life: the Effect it should have upon the Lower Classes; and the Higher. - These last have their peculiar Distresses: Exemplified in the Life and heroic Death of Lord Robert Manners. - Concluding Address to his Grace the Duke of Rutland.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>NO longer truth, though shown in verse, disdain, <br>But own the village life a life of pain; <br>I too must yield, that oft amid these woes <br>Are gleams of transient mirth and hours of sweet repose. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Such as you find on yonder sportive Green, <br>The 'Squire's tall gate and churchway-walk between; <br>Where loitering stray a little tribe of friends, <br>On a fair Sunday when the sermon ends: <br>Then rural beaux their best attire put on, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>To win their nymphs, as other nymphs are won; <br>While those long wed go plain, and by degrees, <br>Like other husbands, quit their care to please. <br>Some of the sermon talk, a sober crowd, <br>And loudly praise, if it were preach'd aloud; </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Some on the labours of the week look round, <br>Feel their own worth, and think their toil renown'd; <br>While some, whose hopes to no renown extend, <br>Are only pleas'd to find their labours end.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus, as their hours glide on with pleasure fraught, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Their careful masters brood the painful thought; <br>Much in their mind they murmur and lament, <br>That one fair day should be so idly spent; <br>And think that Heaven deals hard, to tythe their store <br>And tax their time for preachers and the poor.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet still, ye humbler friends, enjoy your hour, <br>This is your portion, yet unclaim'd of power;<br>This is Heaven's gift to weary men opprest, <br>And seems the type of their expected rest: <br>But yours, alas! are joys that soon decay; </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Frail joys, begun and ended with the day; <br>Or yet, while day permits those joys to reign, <br>The village vices drive them from the plain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">See the stout churl, in drunken fury great, <br>Strike the bare bosom of his teeming mate! </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>His naked vices, rude and unrefin'd, <br>Exert their open empire o'er the mind; <br>But can we less the senseless rage despise, <br>Because the savage acts without disguise?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet here Disguise, the city's vice, is seen, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>And Slander steals along and taints the Green; <br>At her approach domestic peace is gone, <br>Domestic broils at her approach come on; <br>She to the wife the husband's crime conveys, <br>She tells the husband when his consort strays; </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Her busy tongue, through all the little state, <br>Diffuses doubt, suspicion, and debate; <br>Peace, tim'rous goddess! quits her old domain,<br>In sentiment and song content to reign.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nor are the nymphs that breathe the rural air </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>So fair as Cynthia's, nor so chaste as fair; <br>These to the town afford each fresher face, <br>And the Clown's trull receives the Peer's embrace; <br>From whom, should chance again convey her down, <br>The Peer's disease in turn attacks the Clown.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Hear too the 'Squire, or 'squire-like farmer, talk, <br>How round their regions nightly pilferers walk; <br>How from their ponds the fish are borne, and all <br>The rip'ning treasures from their lofty wall; <br>How meaner rivals in their sports delight, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Just rich enough to claim a doubtful right;<br>Who take a licence round their fields to stray, <br>A mongrel race! the Poachers of the day.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And hark! the riots of the Green begin, <br>That sprang at first from yonder noisy inn; </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>What time the weekly pay was vanish'd all, <br>And the slow hostess scor'd the threat'ning wall; <br>What time they ask'd, their friendly feast to close, <br>A final cup, and that will make them foes; <br>When blows ensue that break the arm of Toil, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>And rustic battle ends the boobies' broil. <br>Save when to yonder hall they bend their way, <br>Where the grave Justice ends the grievous fray; <br>He who recites, to keep the poor in awe, <br>The law's vast volume - for he knows the law. - </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>To him with anger or with shame repair <br>The injur'd peasant and deluded fair.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Lo! at his throne the silent nymph appears, <br>Frail by her shape, but modest in her tears; <br>And while she stands abash'd, with conscious eye, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Some favourite female of her judge glides by; <br>Who views with scornful glance the strumpet's fate, <br>And thanks the stars that made her keeper great: <br>Near her the swain, about to bear for life <br>One certain evil, doubts 'twixt war and wife; </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>But, while the faultering damsel takes her oath, <br>Consents to wed, and so secures them both. <br>Yet why, you ask, these humble crimes relate, <br>Why make the poor as guilty as the great? <br> To show the great, those mightier sons of Pride, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br> How near in vice the lowest are allied; <br> Such are their natures, and their passions such, <br> But these disguise too little, those too much: <br> So shall the man of power and pleasure see <br> In his own slave as vile a wretch as he; </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br> In his luxurious lord the servant find <br> His own low pleasures and degenerate mind;<br> And each in all the kindred vices trace<br> Of a poor, blind, bewilder'd, erring race; <br> Who, a short time in varied fortune past, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br> Die, and are equal in the dust at last.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And you, ye poor, who still lament your fate, <br>Forbear to envy those you call the great;<br>And know, amid those blessings they possess, <br>They are, like you, the victims of distress;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>While Sloth with many a pang torments her slave, <br>Fear waits on guilt, and Danger shakes the brave.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh! if in life one noble chief appears,<br>Great in his name, while blooming in his years; <br>Born to enjoy whate'er delights mankind,</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>And yet to all you feel or fear resign'd;<br>Who gave up joys and hopes to you unknown, <br>For pains and dangers greater than your own; <br>If such there be, then let your murmurs cease, <br>Think, think of him, and take your lot in peace.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">And such there was: - Oh! grief, that checks our pride, <br>Weeping we say there was, for Manner's died; <br>Belov'd of Heav'n! these humble lines forgive, <br>That sing of thee, and thus aspire to live.<br>As the tall oak, whose vigorous branches form </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>An ample shade and brave the wildest storm,<br>High o'er the subject wood is seen to grow, <br>The guard and glory of the trees below; <br>Till on its head the fiery bolt descends, <br>And o'er the plain the shatter'd trunk extends; </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Yet then it lies, all wond'rous as before,<br>And still the glory, though the guard no more.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So Thou, when every virtue, every grace, <br>Rose in thy soul, or shone within thy face; <br>When, though the Son of Granby; thou wert known </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Less by thy father's glory than thy own; <br>When Honour lov'd, and gave thee every charm, <br>Fire to thy eye and vigour to thy arm;<br>Then from our lofty hopes and longing eyes <br>Fate and thy virtues call'd thee to the skies; </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Yet still we wonder at thy tow'ring fame, <br>And losing thee, still dwell upon thy name.<br>Oh! ever honour'd, ever valued! say <br>What verse can praise thee, or what work repay? <br>Yet Verse (in all we can) thy worth repays, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Nor trusts the tardy zeal of future days; <br>Honours for thee thy Country shall prepare, <br>Thee in their hearts, the Good, the Brave shall bear; <br>To deeds like thine shall noblest chiefs aspire, <br>The Muse shall mourn thee, and the world admire.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">In future times, when smit with glory's charms, <br>The untry'd youth first quits a father's arms; <br>«Oh be like him,» the weeping sire shall say, <br>«Like Manners walk, who walk'd in honour's way; <br>In danger foremost, yet in death sedate, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Oh! be like him in all things, but his fate!» <br>If for that fate such public tears be shed, <br>That victory seems to die now Thou art dead; <br>How shall a friend his nearer hope resign, <br>That friend a brother, and whose soul was thine?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>By what bold lines shall we his grief express, <br>Or by what soothing numbers make it less?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Tis not, I know, the chiming of a song, <br>Nor all the powers that to the Muse belong; <br>Words aptly cull'd, and meanings well exprest, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Can calm the sorrows of a wounded breast: <br>But Virtue, soother of the fiercest pains, <br>Shall heal that bosom, Rutland, where she reigns.<br>Yet hard the task to heal the bleeding heart,<br>To bid the still-recurring thoughts depart;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Tame the fierce grief, and stem the rising sigh,<br>And curb rebellious passion with reply;<br>Calmly to dwell on all that pleas'd before,<br>And yet to know that all shall please no more,<br>Oh! glorious labour of the soul, to save </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Her captive powers, and bravely mourn the brave!<br>To such, these thoughts will lasting comfort give: <br>Life is not measur'd by the time we live; <br>'Tis not an even course of threescore years, <br>A life of narrow views and paltry fears; </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Grey hairs and wrinkles, and the cares they bring, <br>That take from death the terrors or the sting: <br>But 'tis the gen'rous spirit, mounting high <br>Above the world; that native of the sky; <br>The noble spirit, that, in dangers brave,</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Calmly looks on, or looks beyond the grave. <br>Such Manners was, so he resign'd his breath! <br>If in a glorious, then a timely death. <br>Cease then that grief, and let those tears subside: <br>If Passion rule us, be that passion Pride; </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>If Reason, Reason bids us strive to raise <br>Our fallen hearts, and be like him we praise; <br>Or if Affection still the soul subdue, <br>Bring all his virtues, all his worth in view, <br>And let Affection find its comfort too; </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>For how can grief so deeply wound the heart, <br>Where admiration claims so large a part?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Grief is a foe, expel him then thy soul; <br>Let nobler thoughts the nearer views controul; <br>Oh! make the age to come thy better care, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>See other Rutlands, other Granbys there; <br>And as thy thoughts through streaming ages glide, <br>See other heroes die as Manners died; <br>And from their fate thy race shall nobler grow, <br>As trees shoot upward that are prun'd below: </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Or, as old Thames, borne down with decent pride, <br>Sees his young streams run warbling at his side; <br>Though some, by art cut off, no longer run, <br>And some are lost beneath the summer's sun;<br>Yet the pure stream moves on, and as it moves, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Its power increases, and its use improves; <br>While plenty round its spacious waves bestow, <br>Still it flows on, and shall for ever flow.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=George+Crabbe">George Crabbe</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=395941" data-title="The Village (book 2) de George Crabbe" data-description="Argument There are found amid the Evils of a Laborious Life, some Views of Tranquillity and Happiness. - The Repose and Pleasure of a Summer Sabbath: interrupted by Intoxication and Dispute. - Village Detraction. - Complaints of the Squire. - The..."></div> </div> </div>

solid border dashed border dotted border double border groove border ridge border inset border outset border no border blue green red purple cyan gold silver black