Page:The Poems of John Dyer (1903).djvu/73

His blameless fellow-creatures. Let disease,
Let wasted hunger, by destroying live,
And the permission use with trembling thanks,
Meekly reluctant : 't is the brute beyond ; 20
And gluttons ever murder when they kill.
Ev'n to the reptile every cruel deed
Is high impiety. Howe'er not all,
Not of the sanguinary tribe are all ;
All are not savage. Come, ye gentle Swains ! 25
Like Brama's healthy sons on Indus' banks,
Whom the pure stream and garden fruits sustain ;
Ye are the sons of Nature ; your mild hands
Are innocent : ye when ye shear relieve.
Come, gentle Swains ! the bright unsully'd locks 30
Collect ; alternate songs shall soothe your cares,
And warbling music break from every spray.
Be faithful, and the genuine locks alone
Wrap round ; nor alien flake nor pitch enfold ;
Stain not your stores with base desire to add 35
Fallacious weight ; nor yet, to mimic those,
Minute and light, of sandy Urchinfield,
Lessen, with subtle artifice, the Fleece ;
Equal the fraud : nor interpose delay,
Lest busy ether thro' the open wool 40
Debilitating pass, and every film
Ruffle and sully with the valley's dust.
Guard, too, from moisture, and the fretting moth
Pernicious : she, in gloomy shade conceal'd,
Her labyrinth cuts, and mocks the comber's care: 45
But in loose locks of fells she most delights,
And feeble Fleeces of distemper'd sheep,
Whither she hastens, by the morbid scent
Allur'd, as the swift eagle to the fields
Of slaught'ring war or carnage : such apart 50
Keep for their proper use : our ancestors