Page:The Village - Crabbe (1783).djvu/20

 Alternate masters now their slave command, And urge the efforts of his feeble hand; Who, when his age attempts its task in vain, With ruthless taunts of lazy poor complain.

Oft may you see him when he tends the sheep, His winter charge, beneath the hillock weep; Oft hear him murmur to the winds that blow O'er his white locks, and bury them in snow; When rouz'd by rage and muttering in the morn, He mends the broken hedge with icy thorn.

"Why do I live, when I desire to be At once from life and life's long labour free? Like leaves in spring, the young are blown away, Without the sorrows of a slow decay; I, like yon wither'd leaf, remain behind, Nipt by the frost and shivering in the wind; “There