Page:The education of the farmer.djvu/38

Take that and He that doth the ravens feed, Yea, providently caters for the sparrow, Be comfort to my age! Here is the gold; All this I give you. Let me be your servant; Though I look old, yet am I sti'ong and lusty. For in my youth I never did apply Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood; Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, Frosty, but kindly. Let me go with you; I'll do the service of a younger man In all your business and necessities.

Orlando.

O good old man; how well in thee appears The constant service of the antique world, When service sweat for duty, not for meed! Thou art not for the faction of these times, Where none will sweat but for promotion; And having that, do choke their service up Ev'n with the having. 'Tis not so with thee. But, poor old man, thou prun'st a rotten tree. That cannot so much as a blossom yield, In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry. But, come thy ways, we'll go along together; And ere we have thy youthful wages spent, We'll light upon some settled low content.

Adam.

Master, go on; and I will follow thee. To the last gasp with truth and loyalty. From seventeen years till now almost fourscore Here lived I, but now live here no more. At seventeen years many their fortunes seek; But at fourscore, it is too late a week. Yet fortune cannot recompense me better, Than to die well, and not my master's debtor.

As You Like It, Act ii., Scene 3.

What farmer's " feeling heart" will not respond to the touching description of the "patience of the poor" as thus given by Cowper:—

"Poor, yet industrious, modest, quiet, neat,
Such claim compassion in a night like this,
And have a friend in every feeling heart.

The frugal housewife trembles when she lights
Her scanty stock of brushwood, blazing clear.
But dying soon, like all terrestrial joys.
The few small embers left she nurses well;
And, while her infant race, with outspread hands.
And crowded knees, sit cowering o'er the sparks,
Retires, content to quake, so they be warm'd.

The taper soon extinguish'd, which I saw
Dangled along at the cold fingers' end
Just when the day declined; and the brown loaf
Lodged on the shelf, half eaten without sauce
Of savoury cheese, or butter, costlier still;
Sleep seems their only refuge: for alas!
Where penury is felt the thought is chain'd,

And sweet colloquial pleasures are but few.