From the Village Minstrel

(Vincent Van Gogh)

III.
Young Lubin was a peasant from his birth;
His sire a hind born to the flail and plough,
To thump the corn out and to till the earth,
The coarsest chance which nature's laws allow,
To earn his living by a sweating brow;
Thus labour's early days did rugged roll,
Mixt with untimely toil-but e'en as now,
Ambitions prospects fired his little soul,
And fancy soared and sung, 'bove poverty's control.

IV.
Small joy to him were childhood's tempting tricks,
Which school-boys look for in their vacant hours;
With other boys he little cared to mix;
Joy left him lonely in his hawthorn bowers,
As haply binding up his knots of flowers,
Or list'ning unseen birds to hear them sing;
Or gazing downward where the runnel pours,
Through the moss'd bridge, in many a whirling ring;
How would he muse o'er all on pleasure's fairy wing.