Take that and He that doth the ravens feed, |
Orlando. | O good old man; how well in thee appears |
Adam. | Master, go on; and I will follow thee. |
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
And sweet colloquial pleasures are but few.
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,