Page:The Village - Crabbe (1783).djvu/33

 Much in their mind they murmur and lament, That one fair day should be so idly spent; And think that Heaven deals hard, to tythe their store And tax their time for preachers and the poor.

Yet still, ye humbler friends, enjoy your hour, This is your portion, yet unclaim'd of power; This is Heaven's gift to weary men opprest, And seems the type of their expected rest: But yours, alas! are joys that soon decay; Frail joys, began and ended with the day; Or yet, while day permits those joys to reign, The village vices drive them from the plain.

See the stout churl, in drunken fury great, Strike the bare bosom of his teeming mate! His naked vices, rude and unrefin'd, Exert their open empire o'er the mind; Rh