Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/403

377 Are profitless to others. Turn we then

To Britons born and bred within the pale

Of civil polity, and early trained

To earn, by wholesome labour in the field,

The bread they eat. A sample should I give

Of what this stock produces to enrich

And beautify the tender age of life,

A sample fairly culled, ye would exclaim,

"Is this the whistling Plough-boy whose shrill notes

Impart new gladness to the morning air?"

"Forgive me! if I venture to suspect

That many, sweet to hear of in soft verse,

Are of no finer frame:—his joints are stiff;

Beneath a cumbrous frock that to the knees

Invests the thriving churl, his legs appear,

Fellows to those which lustily upheld

The wooden stools, for everlasting use,

On which our Fathers sate. And mark his brow!

Under whose shaggy canopy are set

Two eyes, not dim, but of a healthy stare;

Wide, sluggish, blank, and ignorant, and strange;

Proclaiming boldly that they never drew

A look or motion of intelligence