GEORGE CRABBE: 1754-1832. Crabbe, characterised by Byron as 'Nature's sternest painter, yet the best,' was in early life a surgeon and apothecary at Aldborough, in Suffolk, but afterwards took clerical orders, and spent the greater part of his life in performing the duties of a country rector. His principal poems are The Village, The Parish Register, The Borough, Tales in Verse, and Tales of the Hall. ISAAC ASHFORD, A NOBLE PEASANT. From The Parish Register. Next to these ladies, but in nought allied, Bane of the poor! it wounds their weaker mind If pride were his, 'twas not their vulgar pride, In times severe, when many a sturdy swain At length he found, when seventy years were run, Daily he placed the workhouse in his view! I feel his absence in the hours of prayer, ... ROBERT BURNS: 1759-1796. Robert Burns, the great lyric poet of Scotland, was the son of a small farmer in Ayrshire. In company with his brother, in 1781, he took a farm, which proved far from a prosperous undertaking. He then resolved to emigrate; and to assist in procuring the means of paying his passage, he published in 1786 a collection of poems, which he had begun to compose in his sixteenth year. The volume attracted attention, and his reputation soon spread; and the profits resulting from its sale enabled him to take a farm near Dumfries, where he settled in 1788. At this time he received an appointment in the Excise; but its duties interfering with the management of his farm, he gave up farming in 1791, and removed to Dumfries, where he lived dependent on his salary from the Excise, till his death in 1796. The principal poems of Burns are Halloween, The Cotter's Saturday Night, The Jolly Beggars, The Twa Dogs, Tam o' Shanter, and a collection of songs unequalled in our literature. TO A MOUSE, ON TURNING UP HER NEST WITH THE PLOUGH, NOVEMBER 1785. Wee, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie, Oh what a panic's in thy breastie ! I wad be laith to rin and chase thee, I'm truly sorry man's dominion And justifies that ill opinion, Which makes thee startle At me, thy poor earth-born companion, I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve; hasty clatter sometimes The stick used for clearing away the clods from the plough. Thou thought to dwell, Till, crash! the cruel coulter passed Out through thy cell. That wee bit heap o' leaves and stibble, Now thou's turned out for a' thy trouble, But house or hald, To thole the winter's sleety dribble, sharp comfortable without, hold endure hoar-frost go often wrong 1 An occasional ear of corn in a thrave—that is, twenty-four sheaves. THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT. November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh; The shortening winter-day is near a close ; The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh; The blackening trains o' craws to their repose: The toil-worn cotter frae his labour goes, This night his weekly moil is at an end, Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend. At length his lonely cot appears in view, Th' expectant wee things, toddlin', stacher thro' His clean hearthstane, his thriftie wifie's smile, The lisping infant prattling on his knee, Does a' his weary kiaugh and care beguile, And makes him quite forget his labour and his toil. Belyve the elder bairns come drapping in, At service out, amang the farmers roun'; In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e, To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be. noise from stagger fluttering fire anxiety by and by drive diligently easy handsome hard-won wages With joy unfeigned, brothers and sisters meet, The mother, wi' her needle an' her shears, Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new; The father mixes a' wi' admonition due. .... inquires news makes |