For the Prodigal Son, Joseph's Dream and his Sheaves, O, what would they be to my tale of Two Thieves? The one, yet unbreeched, is not three birthdays old, His Grandsire that age more than thirty times told; There are ninety good seasons of fair and foul weather Between them, and both go a pilfering together. With chips is the carpenter strewing his floor? - and his eye, Old Daniel begins; he stops short, He once had a heart which was moved by the wires more Than treading a path trod by thousands before. 'T was a path trod by thousands; but Daniel is one Who went something farther than others have gone; And now with old Daniel you see how it fares, You see to what end he has brought his gray hairs. The pair sally forth hand in hand: ere the sun Has peered o'er the beeches, their work is begun: And yet, into whatever sin they may fall, This child but half knows it, and that not at all. They hunt through the streets with deliberate tread, And each, in his turn, becomes leader or led; And, wherever they carry their plots and their wiles, Every face in the village is dimpled with smiles. Neither checked by the rich nor the needy, they roam; For the gray-headed Sire has a daughter at home, Who will gladly repair all the damage that's done; And three, were it asked, would be rendered for one. Old Man! whom so oft I with pity have eyed, 1800. V. ANIMAL TRANQUILLITY AND DECAY. THE little hedgerow birds, That peck along the road, regard him not. His gait, is one expression: every limb, A man who does not move with pain, but moves All effort seems forgotten; one to whom 1798. EPITAPHS AND ELEGIAC PIECES. EPITAPHS TRANSLATED FROM CHIABRERA. I. WEEP not, beloved Friends! nor let the air And this alone, the life which now I live In peace eternal; where desire and joy Together move in fellowship without end.- His tombstone thus should speak for him. And surely Small cause there is for that fond wish of ours Long to continue in this world; a world That keeps not faith, nor yet can point a hope II. PERHAPS Some needful service of the State Drew TITUS from the depth of studious bowers, And doomed him to contend in faithless courts, And his pure native genius, lead him back A roseate fragrance breathed.* O human life, That never art secure from dolorous change! Behold a high injunction suddenly To Arno's side hath brought him, and he charmed To the perpetual silence of the grave. O THOU who movest onward with a mind * Ivi vivea giocondo e i suoi pensieri Erano tutti rose. The Translator had not skill to come nearer to his original. |