Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs, Robert Bloomfield [top 100 books of all time checklist txt] 📗

wishes thus then I fulfill:--
My Dame and I can live without the Mill:
_George_, take the whole; I'll near you still remain
To guide your judgment in the choice of Grain:

_Perfect Content: hopes and prospects of Goodness_.

In Virtue's path commence your prosperous life;
And from my hand receive your worthy Wife.
Rise, _Phoebe_; rise, my Girl!--kneel not to me;
But to THAT POW'R who interpos'd for thee.
Integrity hath mark'd your favourite Youth;
Fair budding Honour, Constancy, and Truth:
Go to his arms;--and may unsullied joys
Bring smiling round me, rosy Girls and Boys!
I'll love them for thy sake. And may your days
Glide on, as glides the Stream that never stays;
Bright as whose shingled bed, till life's decline,
May all your Worth, and all your Virtues shine!'

THE WIDOW TO HER HOUR-GLASS.

Come, friend, I'll turn thee up again:
Companion of the lonely hour!
Spring thirty times hath fed with rain
And cloath'd with leaves my humble bower,
Since thou hast stood
In frame of wood,
On Chest or Window by my side:
At every Birth still thou wert near,
Still spoke thine admonitions clear.--
And, when my Husband died,

I've often watch'd thy streaming sand
And seen the growing Mountain rise,
And often found Life's hopes to stand
On props as weak in Wisdom's eyes:
Its conic crown
Still sliding down,
Again heap'd up, then down again;
The sand above more hollow grew,
Like days and years still filt'ring through,
And mingling joy and pain.

While thus I spin and sometimes sing,
(For now and then my heart will glow)
Thou measur'st Time's expanding wing
By thee the noontide hour I know:
Though silent thou,
Still shalt thou flow,
And jog along thy destin'd way:
But when I glean the sultry fields,
When Earth her yellow Harvest yields,
Thou get'st a Holiday.

Steady as Truth, on either end
Thy daily task performing well,
Thou'rt Meditation's constant friend,
And strik'st the Heart without a Bell:
Come, lovely May!
Thy lengthen'd day
Shall gild once more thy native plain;
Curl inward here, sweet Woodbine flow'r;--
'Companion of the lonely hour,
'I'll turn thee up again.



MARKET-NIGHT.

'O Winds, howl not so long and loud;
Nor with your vengeance arm the snow:
Bear hence each heavy-loaded cloud;
And let the twinkling Star-beams glow.

'Now sweeping floods rush down the slope,
Wide scattering ruin.--Stars, shine soon!
No other light my Love can hope;
Midnight will want the joyous _Moon_.

'O guardian Spirits!--Ye that dwell
Where woods, and pits, and hollow ways,
The lone night-trav'ler's fancy swell
With fearful tales, of older days,--

'Press round him:--guide his willing steed
Through darkness, dangers, currents, snows;
Wait where, from shelt'ring thickets freed,
The dreary Heath's rude whirlwind blows.

'From darkness rushing o'er his way,
The Thorn's white load it bears on high!
Where the short furze all shrouded lay,
Mounts the dried grass;--Earth's bosom dry.

'Then o'er the Hill with furious sweep
It rends the elevated tree--
Sure-footed beast, thy road thou'lt keep;
Nor storm nor darkness startles thee!

'O blest assurance, (trusty steed,)
To thee the buried road is known;
_Home_, all the spur thy footsteps need,
When loose the frozen rein is thrown,

'Between the roaring blasts that shake
The naked Elder at the door,
Though not one prattler to me speak,
Their sleeping sighs delight me more.

'Sound is their rest:--they little know
What pain, what cold, their Father feels;
But dream, perhaps, they see him now,
While each the promis'd Orange peels.

Would it were so!--the fire burns bright,
And on the warming trencher gleams;
In Expectation's raptur'd sight
How precious his arrival seems!

'I'll look abroad!--'tis piercing cold!--
How the bleak wind assails his breast!
Yet some faint light mine eyes, behold:
The storm is verging o'er the West.

'There shines a _Star!_--O welcome sight!--
Through the thin vapours brightening still!
Yet, 'twas beneath the fairest night
The murd'rer stained yon lonely Hill.

'Mercy, kind Heav'n! such thoughts dispel!
No voice, no footstep can I hear!
(Where Night and Silence brooding dwell,
Spreads thy cold reign, heart-chilling Fear.)

'Distressing hour! uncertain fate!
O Mercy, Mercy, guide him home!--
Hark!--then I heard the distant gate;--
Repeat it, Echo; quickly, come!

'One minute now will ease my fears--
Or, still more wretched must I be?
No: surely Heaven has spar'd our tears:
I see him, cloath'd in snow;--'_tis_ he.--

'Where have you stay'd? put down your load.
How have you borne the storm, the cold?
What horrors did I not forebode--
That Beast is worth his weight in gold.'

Thus spoke the joyful Wife;--then ran
And hid in grateful steams her head:
Dapple was hous'd, the hungry Man
With joy glanc'd o'er the Children's bed.

'What, all asleep!--so best;' he cried:
O what a night I've travell'd through!
Unseen, unheard, I might have died;
But Heaven has brought me safe to you.

'Dear Partner of my nights and days,
That smile becomes thee!--Let us then
Learn, though mishap may cross our ways,
It is not ours to reckon when.'



THE FAKENHAM GHOST.

A Ballad.

The Lawns were dry in Euston Park;
(Here Truth [1] inspires my Tale)
The lonely footpath, still and dark,
Led over Hill and Dale.



[Footnote 1: This Ballad is founded on a fact. The circumstance occurred perhaps long before I was born: but is still related by my Mother, and some of the oldest inhabitants in that part of the country. R.B.]

Benighted was an ancient Dame,
And fearful haste she made
To gain the vale of Fakenham,
And hail its Willow shade.

Her footsteps knew no idle stops,
But follow'd faster still;
And echo'd to the darksome Copse
That whisper'd on the Hill;

Where clam'rous Rooks, yet scarcely hush'd,
Bespoke a peopled shade;
And many a wing the foliage brush'd,
And hov'ring circuits made.

The dappled herd of grazing Deer
That sought the Shades by day,
Now started from her path with fear,
And gave the Stranger way.

Darker it grew; and darker fears
Came o'er her troubled mind;
When now, a short quick step she hears
Come patting close behind.

She turn'd; it stopt;--nought could she see
Upon the gloomy plain!
But, as she strove the Sprite to flee,
She heard the same again.

Now terror seiz'd her quaking frame;
For, where the path was bare,
The trotting Ghost kept on the same!
She mutter'd many a pray'r.

Yet once again, amidst her fright
She tried what sight could do;
When through the cheating glooms of night,
A MONSTER stood in view.

Regardless of whate'er she felt,
It follow'd down the plain!
She own'd her sins, and down she knelt,
And said her pray'rs again.

Then on she sped: and Hope grew strong,
The white park gate in view;
Which pushing hard, so long it swung
That _Ghost_ and all pass'd through.

Loud fell the gate against the post!
Her heart-strings like to crack:
For, much she fear'd the grisly Ghost
Would leap upon her back.

Still on, pat, pat, the Goblin went,
As it had done before:--
Her strength and resolution spent,
She fainted at the door.

Out came her Husband much surpris'd:
Out came her Daughter dear:
Good-natur'd Souls! all unadvis'd
Of what they had to fear.

The Candle's gleam pierc'd through the night,
Some short space o'er the green;
And there the little trotting Sprite
Distinctly might be seen.

An _Ass's Foal_ had lost its Dam
Within the spacious Park;
And simple as the playful Lamb
Had follow'd in the dark.

No Goblin he; no imp of sin:
No crimes had ever known.
They took the shaggy stranger in,
And rear'd him as their own.

His little hoofs would rattle round
Upon the Cottage floor:
The Matron learn'd to love the sound
That frighten'd her before.

A favorite the Ghost became;
And, 'twas his fate to thrive:
And long he liv'd and spread his fame,
And kept the joke alive.

For many a laugh went through the Vale;
And some conviction tod:--
Each thought some other Goblin
Perhaps, was just as true.



THE FRENCH MARINER.

A Ballad.

An Old _French Mariner_ am I,
Whom Time hath render'd poor and gray;
Hear, conquering _Britons_, ere I die,
What anguish prompts me thus to say.

I've rode o'er many a dreadful wave,
I've seen the reeking blood descend:
I've heard the last groans of the brave;--
The shipmate dear, the steady Friend.

'Twas when _De Grasse_ the battle join'd
And struck, on _April's_ fatal morn:
I left three smiling boys behind,
And saw my Country's Lily torn.

There, as I brav'd the storms of Fate,
Dead in my arms my Brother fell;
Here sits forlorn his widow'd Mate,
Who weeps whene'er the tale I tell.

Thy reign, sweet Peace, was o'er too soon;
War, piecemeal, robs me of my joy:
For, on the bloodstain'd _first_ of _June_
Death took my _eldest_ favorite Boy.

The other two enrag'd arose;
'Our Country claims our lives,' they said.
With them I lost my Soul's repose;
That fatal hour my last hope fled.

With BRUYES the proud NILE they sought;
Where one in ling'ring wounds expir'd;
While yet the other bravely fought
The Orient's magazine was fir'd.

And must I mourn my Country's shame?
And envious curse the conquering Foe?
No more I feel that thirst of Fame;--All
I can feel is private woe.

E'en all the joy that Vict'ry brings,
(Her bellowing Guns, and flaming pride)
Cold, momentary comfort flings
Around where weeping Friends reside.

Whose blighted bud no Sun shall cheer,
Whose Lamp of Life no longer shine:
Some Parent, Brother, Child, most dear,
Who ventur'd, and who died like mine.

Proud crested Fiend, the World's worst foe,
Ambition, canst thou boast one deed,
Whence no unsightly horrors flow,
Nor private peace is seen to bleed?

Ah! why do these old Eyes remain
To see succeeding mornings rise!
My Wife is dead, my Children slain.
And Poverty is all my prize.

Yet shall not poor enfeebled Age
Breathe forth revenge;--but rather say
O God, who seest the Battle's rage,
Take from men's hearts that rage away.

From the vindictive tongue of strife
Bid Hatred and false Glory See;
That babes may meet advancing life,
Nor feel the woes that light on me.



DOLLY

_"Ingenuous trust, and confidence of Love."_


The Bat began with giddy wing
His circuit round the Shed, the Tree;
And clouds of dancing Gnats to sing
A summer-night's serenity.

Darkness crept slowly o'er the East!
Upon the Barn-roof watch'd the Cat;
Sweet breath'd the ruminating Beast
At rest where DOLLY musing sat.

A simple Maid, who could employ
The silent lapse of Evening mild,
And lov'd its solitary joy;
For Dolly was Reflection's child.

He who had pledg'd his word to be
Her life's dear guardian, far away,
The flow'r of Yeoman