Bloomfield, Robert

The Farmer’s Boy, Autum

(an excerpt)

1. No more the fields with scattered grain supply
2. The restless wandering tenants of the STY;
3. From oak to oak they rim with eager haste,
4. And wrangling share the first delicious taste
5. Of fallen ACORNS; yet but thinly found
6. Till the strong gale has shook them to the ground.
7. It comes; and the roaring woods obedient wave:
8. Their home well-pleased the joint adventurers leave:
9. The trudging sow leads forth her numerous young,
10. Playful, and white, and clean, the briars among,
11. Till briars and thorns increasing, fence them round,
12. Where last year’s mouldering leaves bestrew the ground,
13. And o’er their heads, loud lash’d by furious squalls,
14. Bright from theft cups the rattling treasure falls;
15. Hot, thirsty food; whence doubly sweet and cool
16. The welcome margin of some rush-grown pool.
17. The Wild Duck’s lovely haunt, whose jealous eye
18. Guards every point; who sits, prepar’d to fly
19. On the calm bosom of her little lake,
20. Too closely screen’d for ruffian winds to shake;
21. And as the bold intruders press around
22. At once she starts, and rises with a bound:
23. With bristles rais’d the sudden noise they hear,
24. And ludicrously wild, and wing’d with fear,
25. The herd decamp with more than swinish speed,
26. And snorting dash through sedge, and rush, and reed:
27. Through tangling thickets on and on they go
28. Then stop and listen for their fancied foe;
29. The hindmost still the growing panic spreads,
30. Repeated flight the first alarm succeeds
31. Till Folly’s wages, wounds and thorns, they reap:
32. Yet glorying in their fortunate escape
33. Their groundless terrors by degrees soon cease,
34. And Night’s dark reign restores their wonted peace.
35. For now the gale subsides, and from each bough
36. The roosting Pheasant’s short but frequent crow
37. Invites to rest, and huddling side by side,
38. The herd in closest ambush seek to hide;
39. Seek some warm slope with shagged moss o’erspread
40. Dry’d leaves their copious covering and their bed,
41. In vain may Giles, through gathering glooms that fall
42. And solemn silence, urge his piercing call:
43. Whole days and nights they tarry midst their store
44. Nor quit the woods, till oaks can yield no more.