Page:The Village - Crabbe (1783).djvu/26

 His drooping patient, long inur'd to pain, And long unheeded, knows remonstrance vain; He ceases now the feeble help to crave Of man, and mutely hastens to the grave.

But ere his death some pious doubts arise, Some simple fears which "bold bad" men despise; Fain would he ask the parish priest to prove His title certain to the joys above; For this he sends the murmuring nurse, who calls The holy stranger to these dismal walls; And doth not he, the pious man, appear, He, "passing rich with forty pounds a year?" Ah! no, a shepherd of a different stock, And far unlike him, feeds this little flock; A jovial youth, who thinks his Sunday's task As much as God or man can fairly ask; The