Page:The Village - Crabbe (1783).djvu/14

 Where now are these? Beneath yon cliff they stand, To show the freighted pinnace where to land; To load the ready steed with guilty haste, To fly in terror o'er the pathless waste, Or when detected in their straggling course, To foil their foes by cunning or by force; Or yielding part (when equal knaves contest) To gain a lawless passport for the rest.

Here wand'ring long amid these frowning fields, I fought the simple life that Nature yields; Rapine and Wrong and Fear usurp'd her place, And a bold, artful, surly, savage race; Who, only skill'd to take the finny tribe, The yearly dinner, or septennial bribe, Wait on the shore, and as the waves run high, On the tost vessel bend their eager eye; Which