Classic Poem

XI.

For them the fervid summer only brings
A double curse of stifling withering heat;
For them no flowers spring up, no wild bird sings,
No moss-grown walks refresh their weary feet; —
No river's murmuring sound; — no wood-walk, sweet
With many a flower the learned slight and pass; —
Nor meadow, with pale cowslips thickly set
Amid the soft leaves of its tufted grass, —
Lure them a childish stock of treasures to amass.

XII.

Have we forgotten our own infancy,
That joys so simple are to them denied? —
Our boyhood's hopes — our wanderings far and free,
Where yellow gorse-bush left the common wide
And open to the breeze? — The active pride
Which made each obstacle a pleasure seem;
When, rashly glad, all danger we defied,
Dashed through the brook by twilight's fading gleam,
Or scorned the tottering plank, and leapt the narrow stream?

XIII.

In lieu of this, — from short and bitter night,
Sullen and sad the infant labourer creeps;
He joys not in the glow of morning's light,
But with an idle yearning stands and weeps,
Envying the babe that in its cradle sleeps:
And ever as he slowly journeys on,
His listless tongue unbidden silence keeps;
His fellow-labourers (playmates hath he none)
Walk by, as sad as he, nor hail the morning sun.

XIV.

Mark the result. Unnaturally debarred
All nature's fresh and innocent delights,
While yet each germing energy strives hard,
And pristine good with pristine evil fights;
When every passing dream the heart excites,
And makes even guarded virtue insecure;
Untaught, unchecked, they yield as vice invites:
With all around them cramped, confined, impure,
Fast spreads the moral plague which nothing new shall cure.

XV.

Yes, this reproach is added; (infamous
In realms which own a Christian monarch's sway!)
Not suffering only is their portion, thus
Compelled to toil their youthful lives away:
Excessive labour works the Soul 's decay —
Quenches the intellectual light within —
Crushes with iron weight the mind's free play —
Steals from us LEISURE purer thoughts to win —
And leaves us sunk and lost in dull and native sin.