While thro' their chearful band the rural talk
The rural scandal, and the rural jest
Fly harmless, to deceive the tedious time, 160
And steal unfelt the sultry hours away.
Behind the master walks, builds up the shocks;
And, conscious, glancing oft on every side
His fated eye, feels his heart heave with joy.
The gleaners spread around, and here and there, 165
Spike after spike, their scanty harvest pick.
Be not too narrow, husbandmen! but fling
From the full sheaf, with charitable stealth,
The liberal handful. Think, oh grateful think!
How good the God of Harvest is to you; 170
Who pours abundance o'er your flowing fields;
While these unhappy partners of your kind
Wide-hover round you, like the fowls of heaven,
And ask their humble dole. The various turns
Of fortune ponder; that your sons may want 175
What now, with hard reluctance, faint, ye give.
The lovely young Lavinia once had friends;
And Fortune smil'd, deceitful, on her birth.
For in her helpless years depriv'd of all,
Of every stay, save innocence and Heaven, 180
She, with her widow'd mother, feeble, old,
And poor, liv'd in a cottage, far retir'd
Among the windings of a woody vale;
By solitude and deep surrounding shades,
But more by bashful modesty, conceal'd, 185
Together thus they shunn'd the cruel scorn
Which virtue, sunk to poverty, would meet
From giddy passion and low-minded, pride:
Almost on Nature's common bounty fed;
Like the gay birds that sung them to repose, 190
Content, and careless of to-morrow's fare.
Her form was fresher than the morning-rose,
When
