He once was chief in all the rustic trade;
  His steady hand the straightest furrow made;
  Full many a prize he won, and still is proud
  To find the triumphs of his youth allowed;
  A transient pleasure sparkles in his eyes. 
  He hears and smiles, then thinks again and sighs;
  For now he journeys to his grave in pain;
  The rich disdain him; nay, the poor disdain: 
  Alternate masters now their slave command,
  Urge the weak efforts of his feeble hand,
  And, when his age attempts its task in vain,
  With ruthless taunts, of lazy poor complain.

  Oft may you see him, when he tends the sheep,
  His winter charge, beneath the hillock weep;
  Oft hear him murmur to the winds that blow
  O’er his white locks and bury them in snow,
  When, roused by rage and muttering in the morn,
  He mends the broken hedge with icy thorn:—­

  ’Why do I live, when I desire to be
  At once from life and life’s long labour free? 
  Like leaves in spring, the young are blown away,
  Without the sorrows of a slow decay;
  I, like you withered leaf, remain behind,
  Nipped by the frost, and shivering in the wind;
  There it abides till younger buds come on
  As I, now all my fellow-swains are gone;
  Then from the rising generation thrust,
  It falls, like me, unnoticed to the dust.

  ’These fruitful fields, these numerous flocks I see,
  Are others’ gain, but killing cares to me;
  To me the children of my youth are lords,
  Cool in their looks, but hasty in their words: 
  Wants of their own demand their care; and who
  Feels his own want and succours others too? 
  A lonely, wretched man, in pain I go,
  None need my help, and none relieve my woe;
  Then let my bones beneath the turf be laid,
  And men forget the wretch they would not aid.’

  Thus groan the old, till by disease oppressed,
  They taste a final woe, and then they rest.

  Theirs is yon house that holds the parish poor,
  Whose walls of mud scarce bear the broken door;
  There, where the putrid vapours, flagging, play,
  And the dull wheel hums doleful through the day;
  There children dwell who know no parents’ care;
  Parents, who know no children’s love, dwell there! 
  Heart-broken matrons on their joyless bed,
  Forsaken wives, and mothers never wed;
  Dejected widows with unheeded tears,
  And crippled age with more than childhood fears;
  The lame, the blind, and, far the happiest they! 
  The moping idiot, and the madman gay. 
  Here too the sick their final doom receive,
  Here brought, amid the scenes of grief, to grieve,
  Where the loud groans from some sad chamber flow,
  Mixed with the clamours of the crowd below;
  Here, sorrowing, they each kindred sorrow scan,
  And the cold charities of man to man: 
  Whose laws indeed for ruined age provide,
  And strong compulsion plucks the scrap from pride;
  But still that scrap is bought with many a sigh,
  And pride embitters what it can’t deny.