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Artless vanity


Wereover many a stile neeth willows grey

The winding footpath leaves the public way

Free from the dusty din & ceasless chime

Of bustling waggons in the summer time

Crossing a brook—were braving storms in vain

Two willows fell & still for brigs remain

Corn field & clover closes leading down

In peacful windings to the neighbouring town

Were on bridge wall or rail or trees smooth bark

The passing eye is often stopt to mark

The artless vanity of village swains

Who spend a leisure hour with patient pains

& put to sculptors purposes the knife

To spin a cobweb for an after life

Nicking the letters of their little names

In rudest forms that untaught science frames

Pleasd with the feeblest shadow of renown

That warms alike the noble and the clown

‘clown’ = agricultural labourer


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