Where arching groves, and flower-embroider'd banks,
Verdant with thymy grass, tempted the sheep
To scramble up their height, while he, reclin'd
Upon the pillowing moss, lay listlessly
Through the long summer's day. Not such as he,
In plains of Thessaly, as poets feign,
Went piping forth at the first gleam of morn,
And in their bowering thickets dreamt of joy,
And innocence, and love. Let the true lay
Speak thus of the poor hind:—His indolent gaze
Reck'd not of natural beauties; his delights
Were gross and sensual: not the glorious sun,
Rising above his hills, and lighting up
His woods and pastures with a joyous beam,
To him was grandeur; not the reposing sound
Of tinkling flocks cropping the tender shoots,
To him was music; not the blossomy breeze
That slumbers in the honey-dropping bean-flower,
To him was fragrance: he went plodding on
His long-accustomed path; and when his cares
Of daily duties were o'erpass'd, he ate,
And laugh'd, and slept, with a most drowsy mind.
Dweller in cities, scorn'st thou the shepherd boy,
Who never look'd within to find the eye
For Nature's glories? Know, his slumbering spirit
Struggled to pierce the fogs and deepening mists
Of rustic ignorance; but he was bound
With a harsh galling chain, and so he went
Grovelling along his dim instinctive way.
Yet thou hadst other hopes and other thoughts,
But the world spoil'd thee: then the mutable clouds,
And doming skies, and glory-shedding sun,
And tranquil stars that hung above thy head
Like angels gazing on thy crowded path,
To thee were worthless, and thy soul forsook
The love of beauteous fields, and the blest lore
That man may read in Nature's book of truth.
Despise not, then, the lazy shepherd boy:
For his account and thine shall be made up,
And evil cherish'd and occasion lost
May cast their load upon thee, while his spirit
May bud and bloom in a more sunny sphere.
The inquiry into the origin and propagation of sheep, no less than of the silk-worm, may be justly regarded as a subject of the deepest interest. For the management and use of these
