Page:The education of the farmer.djvu/38

 Take that and He that doth the ravens feed, Yea, providently caters for the sparrow, Be comfort to my age! Here is the gold; All this I give you. Let me be your servant; Though I look old, yet am I sti'ong and lusty. For in my youth I never did apply Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood; Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, Frosty, but kindly. Let me go with you; I'll do the service of a younger man In all your business and necessities.

As You Like It, Act ii., Scene 3.

What farmer's " feeling heart" will not respond to the touching description of the "patience of the poor" as thus given by Cowper:—

"Poor, yet industrious, modest, quiet, neat,

Such claim compassion in a night like this,

And have a friend in every feeling heart.

The frugal housewife trembles when she lights

Her scanty stock of brushwood, blazing clear.

But dying soon, like all terrestrial joys.

The few small embers left she nurses well;

And, while her infant race, with outspread hands.

And crowded knees, sit cowering o'er the sparks,

Retires, content to quake, so they be warm'd.

The taper soon extinguish'd, which I saw

Dangled along at the cold fingers' end

Just when the day declined; and the brown loaf

Lodged on the shelf, half eaten without sauce

Of savoury cheese, or butter, costlier still;

Sleep seems their only refuge: for alas!

Where penury is felt the thought is chain'd,

And sweet colloquial pleasures are but few.