husbandman My harvests and my cattle. Her, When even puts the birds astir And day has set in the great woods, We seek, among her garden roods, With bells and cries in vain: the while Lamps, plate, and the decanter smile On the forgotten board. But she, Deaf, blind, and prone on face and knee, Forgets time, family, and feast, And digs like a demented beast.
Tall as a guardsman, pale as the east at dawn, Who strides in strange apparel on the lawn? Rails for his breakfast? routs his vassals out (Like boys escaped from school) with song and shout? Kind and unkind, his Maker’s final freak, Part we deride the child, part dread the antique! See where his gang, like frogs, among the dew Crouch at their duty, an unquiet crew; Adjust their staring kilts; and their swift eyes Turn still to him who sits to supervise. He in the midst, perched on a fallen tree, Eyes them at labour; and, guitar on knee, Now ministers alarm, now scatters joy, Now twangs a halting chord, now tweaks a boy. Thorough in all, my resolute vizier Plays both the