YON COTTAGER, WHO WEAVES AT HER OWN DOOR,
PILLOW AND BOBBINS ALL HER LITTLE STORE:
JUST EARNS A SCANTY PITTANCE,
LONDON, PUBLISHED JUNE 1. 1810, BY JOHN SHARPE, PICCADILLY
She, for her humble sphere by nature fit,
Has little understanding, and no wit,
Receives no praise; but though her lot be such,
(Toilsome and indigent) she renders much;
Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true-
A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew;
And in that charter reads with sparkling eyes
Her title to a treasure in the skies.
O happy peasant! Oh unhappy bard!
His the mere tinsel, hers the rich reward;
He prais'd perhaps for ages yet to come,
She never heard of half a mile from home:
He lost in errours his vain heart prefers,
She safe in the simplicity of hers.
Not many wise, rich, noble, or profound In science, win one inch of heav'nly ground. And is it not a mortifying thought
The poor should gain it, and the rich should not? No-the voluptuaries, who ne'er forget
One pleasure lost, lose Heav'n without regret; Regret would rouse them, and give birth to pray'r, Pray'r would add faith, and faith would fix them there.
Not that the Former of us all in this,
Or aught he does, is govern'd by caprice;
The supposition is replete with sin,
And bears the brand of blasphemy burnt in.
Not so the silver trumpet's heav'nly call
Sounds for the poor, but sounds alike for all:
Kings are invited, and would kings obey,
No slaves on Earth more welcome were than they:
But royalty, nobility, and state,
Are such a dead preponderating weight,
That endless bliss (how strange soe'er it seem)
In counterpoise, flies up and kicks the beam.
ye cannot enter-why?
Because ye will not, Conyers would reply---
And he says much that many may dispute
And cavil at with ease, but none refute.
O bless'd effect of penury and want,
The seed sown there, how vig'rous is the plant!
No soil like poverty for growth divine,
As leanest land supplies the richest wine.
Earth gives too little, giving only bread,
To nourish pride, or turn the weakest head:
To them the sounding jargon of the schools
Seems what it is-a cap and bell for fools:
The light they walk by, kindled from above,
Shows them the shortest way to life and love:
They, strangers to the controversial field,
Where deists, always foil'd, yet scorn to yield,
And never check'd by what impedes the wise,
Believe, rush forward, and possess the prize.
Envy, ye great, the dull unletter'd small:
Ye have much cause for envy-but not all.
We boast some rich ones whom the Gospel sways,
And one who wears a coronet and prays;
Like gleanings of an olive-tree they show,
Here and there one upon the topmost bough.
How readily upon the Gospel plan,
That question has it's answer-What is man?
Sinful and weak, in ev'ry sense a wretch;
An instrument, whose chords upon the stretch,
And strain'd to the last screw that he can bear,
Yield only discord in his Maker's ear:
Once the blest residence of truth divine,
Glorious as Solyma's interior shrine,
Where, in his own oracular abode,
Dwelt visibly the light-creating God;
But made long since, like Babylon of old,
A den of mischiefs never to be told:
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