Page:The Poems of John Dyer (1903).djvu/76

 Devours the grassy sward, the verdant food Of injur'd herds and flocks, or what the plough Should turn and moulder for the bearded grain : Pernicious habit ! drawing gradual on Increasing beggary, and Nature's frowns. Add too, the idle pilf'rer easier there Eludes detection, when a lamb or ewe From intermingled flocks he steals ; or when, With loosen'd tether of his horse or cow, The milky stalk of the tall green-ear'd corn, The year's slow rip'ning fruit, the anxious hope Of his laborious neighbour, he destroys. There are who over-rate our spungy stores, Who deem that Nature grants no clime but ours To spread upon its fields the dews of heav'n, And feed the silky Fleece ; that card nor comb The hairy wool of Gaul can ne'er subdue, To form the thread, and mingle in the loom, Unless a third from Britain swell the heap : Illusion all ; tho' of our sun and air Not trivial is the virtue, nor their fruit Upon our snowy flocks of small esteem : The grain of brightest tincture none so well Imbibes : the wealthy Gobelins must to this Bear witness, and the costliest of their looms. And though with hue of crocus or of rose No pow'r of subtle food, or air, or soil, Can dye the living Fleece ; yet 't will avail To note their influence in the tinging vase : Therefore from herbage of old pastur'd plains, Chief from the matted turf of azure marl Where grow the whitest locks, collect thy stores. Those fields regard not thro' whose recent turf The miry soil appears ; nor ev'n the streams Of Yare or silver Stroud can purify