The Country Life

3Sweet country life, to such unknown,

4Whose lives are others', not their own!

5But serving courts and cities, be

6Less happy, less enjoying thee.

7Thou never plough'st the ocean's foam

8To seek and bring rough pepper home:

9Nor to the Eastern Ind dost rove

10To bring from thence the scorched clove:

11Nor, with the loss of thy loved rest,

12Bring'st home the ingot from the West.

13No, thy ambition's master-piece

14Flies no thought higher than a fleece:

15Or how to pay thy hinds, and clear

16All scores: and so to end the year:

17But walk'st about thine own dear bounds,

18Not envying others' larger grounds:

19For well thou know'st, 'tis not th' extent

20Of land makes life, but sweet content.

21When now the cock (the ploughman's horn)

22Calls forth the lily-wristed morn;

23Then to thy corn-fields thou dost go,

24Which though well soil'd, yet thou dost know

25That the best compost for the lands

26Is the wise master's feet, and hands.

27There at the plough thou find'st thy team,

28With a hind whistling there to them:

29And cheer'st them up, by singing how

30The kingdom's portion is the plough.

31This done, then to th' enamell'd meads

32Thou go'st; and as thy foot there treads,

33Thou seest a present God-like power

34Imprinted in each herb and flower:

35And smell'st the breath of great-eyed kine,

36Sweet as the blossoms of the vine.

37Here thou behold'st thy large sleek neat

38Unto the dew-laps up in meat:

39And, as thou look'st, the wanton steer,

40The heifer, cow, and ox draw near,

41To make a pleasing pastime there.

42These seen, thou go'st to view thy flocks

43Of sheep, safe from the wolf and fox,

44And find'st their bellies there as full

45Of short sweet grass, as backs with wool:

46And leav'st them, as they feed and fill,

47A shepherd piping on a hill.

48For sports, for pageantry, and plays,

49Thou hast thy eves, and holydays:

50On which the young men and maids meet,

51To exercise their dancing feet:

52Tripping the comely country Round,

53With daffadils and daisies crown'd.

54Thy wakes, thy quintels, here thou hast,

55Thy May-poles too with garlands graced;

56Thy Morris-dance; thy Whitsun-ale;

57Thy shearing-feast, which never fail.

58Thy harvest home; thy wassail bowl,

59That's toss'd up after Fox i' th' hole:

60Thy mummeries; thy Twelve-tide kings

61And queens; thy Christmas revellings:

62Thy nut-brown mirth, thy russet wit,

63And no man pays too dear for it. —

64To these, thou hast thy times to go

65And trace the hare i' th' treacherous snow:

66Thy witty wiles to draw, and get

67The lark into the trammel net:

68Thou hast thy cockrood, and thy glade

69To take the precious pheasant made:

70Thy lime-twigs, snares, and pit-falls then

71To catch the pilfering birds, not men.

72 — O happy life! if that their good

73The husbandmen but understood!

74Who all the day themselves do please,

75And younglings, with such sports as these:

76And lying down, have nought t' affright

77Sweet Sleep, that makes more short the night.

78CAETERA DESUNT —