| |
| WHY groaning so, thou solid earth, | |
| Though sprightly summer cheers? | |
| Or is thine old heart dead to mirth? | |
| Or art thou bow’d by years? | |
| |
| “Nor am I cold to summer’s prime, | 5 |
| Nor knows my heart decay; | |
| Nor am I bow’d by countless time, | |
| Thou atom of a day! | |
| |
| “I lov’d to list when tree and tide | |
| Their gentle music made, | 10 |
| And lightly on my sunny side | |
| To feel the plough and spade. | |
| |
| “I lov’d to hold my liquid way | |
| Through floods of living light; | |
| To kiss the sun’s bright hand by day, | 15 |
| And count the stars by night. | |
| |
| “I lov’d to hear the children’s glee, | |
| Around the cottage door, | |
| And peasant’s song right merrily | |
| The glebe come ringing o’er. | 20 |
| |
| “But man upon my back has roll’d | |
| Such heavy loads of stone, | |
| I scarce can grow the harvest gold: | |
| ’T is therefore that I groan. | |
| |
| “And when the evening dew sinks mild | 25 |
| Upon my quiet breast, | |
| I feel the tear of the houseless child | |
| Break burning on my rest. | |
| |
| “Oh! where are all the hallow’d sweets, | |
| The harmless joys I gave? | 30 |
| The pavement of your sordid streets | |
| Are stones on Virtue’s grave. | |
| |
| “And thick and fast as autumn leaves | |
| My children drop away, | |
| A gathering of unripen’d sheaves | 35 |
| By premature decay. | |
| |
| “Gaunt misery holds the cottage door, | |
| And olden honor’s flown, | |
| And slaves are slavish more and more: | |
| ’T is therefore that I groan.” | 40 |
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