PREFACE

TO THE FOURTH EDITION.

THE following Poem, as now presented to the Reader, has been cleared of many of those imperfections which disgraced it in former editions; and some vigour has been added to its feebler parts. Passages may still remain, which the critic may think ought to have been expunged. The only apology offered for their preservation is, that their removal might have been fatal to other more deserving lines, with which they are inseparably connected. The Author does not wish to disguise his sentiment, that the Poem ought originally to have been written with more care. There are many

things in it, of which he can still say, scripsisse pudet. But not having the most distant expectation, when he first wrote, that the pages which he penned were to be so generally read, and afterwards acknowledged, he was inattentive in drawing them up. The Poem indeed was committed to the hands of the printer long before it was finished, and had possibly been extended to a much greater length, had not the compositor overtaken the writer, and called for more materials before they were ready. It was this which occasioned the abruptness of the conclusion, and the hasty dismissal of the remaining Poets, whom it was the Author's intention to have pictured seve rally, but for this interruption.

THE

VILLAGE CURATE.

Or Man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden-of the glorious year,
In all her changes fair; of gentle Spring,
Veil'd in a show'r of roses and perfumes,
Refulgent Summer in the pride of youth,

Mild Autumn with her wain and wheaten sheaf,
Or sullen Winter, loud, and tyrannous;

Let nobler poets sing. Sit thou apart,

And on thine own Parnassus sweep the lyre,

Applauded Hayley, by the muses taught,
Who in those fairy groves delight to dwell
Which thy hand rear'd. And thou, superior bard,
Who, pris'ner to some fair one's will, hast sung
Thy Task so sweetly, strike again the strong,
The bold, the various energetic chord,
Secure and happy in thy fair retreat.

Be mine the task to sing the man content,
The VILLAGE CURATE. From no foreign shore
Came he a wand'ring fugitive, and, tost

On angry seas to please a poet's gods,

At length scarce reach'd the hospitable port.
With Father Brute he boasts not to have left
The tott'ring state of Priam, nor his blood
Can show by lineal catalogue so pure
And only British, that no rude invader
Of Danish, Saxon, or of Norman breed,
Has mix'd with his god-sprung progenitors.
Nor has he clomb the high and hoary tops
Of Snowdon or Plinlimmon; yet in heart
A truer Briton lives not; thee he loves,
O happy England, and will love thee still.

、

In yonder mansion, rear'd by rustic hands,
And deck'd with no superfluous ornament,
Where use was all the architect propos'd,
And all the master wish'd, which, scarce a mile
From village tumult, to the morning sun

Turns its warm aspect, yet with blossoms hung
Of cherry and of peach, lives happy still
The reverend ALCANOR. On a hill,

Half way between the summit and a brook
Which idly wanders at its foot, it stands,
And looks into a valley wood-besprent,
That winds along below. Beyond the brook,
Where the high coppice intercepts it not,
Or social elms, or with his ample waist
The venerable oak, up the steep side
Of yon aspiring hill full opposite,

Luxuriant pasture spreads before his eye
Eternal verdure; save that here and there
A spot of deeper green shows where the swain
Expects a nobler harvest, or high polès

Mark the retreat of the scarce-budded hop,
Hereafter to be eminently fair,