Father. I wish she was! She has plagued the parish long enough! Curate. Shame farmer! Is that the charity your bible teaches? Father. My bible does not teach me to love witches. I know what’s charity; who pays his tithes And poor-rates readier? Curate. Who can better do it? You’ve been a prudent and industrious man, And God has blest your labour. Father. Why, thank God Sir, I’ve had no reason to complain of fortune. Curate. Complain! why you are wealthy. All the parish Look up to you. Father. Perhaps Sir, I could tell Guinea for guinea with the warmest of them. Curate. You can afford a little to the poor, And then what’s better still, you have the heart To give from your abundance.  Father. God forbid I should want charity! Curate. Oh! ’tis a comfort To think at last of riches well employ’d! I have been by a death-bed, and know the worth Of a good deed at that most awful hour When riches profit not. Farmer, I’m going To visit Margery. She is sick I hear— Old, poor, and sick! a miserable lot, And death will be a blessing. You might send her Some little matter, something comfortable, That she may go down easier to the grave And bless you when she dies. Father. What! is she going! Well God forgive her then! if she has dealt In the black art. I’ll tell my dame of it, And she shall send her something. Curate. So I’ll say; And take my thanks for her’s. [goes]  Father. That’s a good man That Curate, Nat, of ours, to go and visit The poor in sickness; but he don’t believe In witchcraft, and that is not like a christian. Nathaniel. And so old Margery’s dying! Father. But you know She may recover; so drive t’other nail in! 

 

Eclogue VI ­ The Ruined Cottage

 Aye Charles! I knew that this would fix thine eye, This woodbine wreathing round the broken porch, Its leaves just withering, yet one autumn flower Still fresh and fragrant; and yon holly-hock That thro’ the creeping weeds and nettles tall Peers taller, and uplifts its column’d stem Bright with the broad rose-blossoms. I have seen Many a fallen convent reverend in decay, And many a time have trod the castle courts And grass-green halls, yet never did they strike Home to the heart such melancholy thoughts As this poor cottage. Look, its little hatch Fleeced with that grey and wintry moss; the roof Part mouldered in, the rest o’ergrown with weeds, House-leek and long thin grass and greener moss; So Nature wars with all the works of man. And, like himself, reduces back to earth His perishable piles. I led thee here Charles, not without design; for this hath been My favourite walk even since I was a boy; And I remember Charles, this ruin here, The 

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