Then, 'midst the threat'nings of a wintry sky,
That cough which blights the bud of infancy,
The dread of parents, rest's inveterate foe,
Came like a plague, and turn'd my songs to woe.
The little sufferers triumph'd over pain,
Their mother smil'd, and bade me hope again.
Yet care gain'd ground, exertion triumph'd less,
Thick fell the gathering terrors of distress;
Anxiety, and griefs without a name.
Had made their dreadful inroads on my frame;
The creeping dropsy, cold as cold could be,
Unnerv'd my arm. ———
But Winter's clouds pursu'd their stormy way,
And March brought sunshine with the length'ning day;
And bade my heart arise, that morn and night
Now throbb'd with irresistible delight.
‘To my old Oak Table.’
On the recovery of his strength he resumed his labours in the garret of the house where he then resided, in Bell Alley, Coleman-Street. Here, amidst all the din and bustle made by six or seven persons, pursuing the same trade as his own, did Bloomfield compose The Farmer's Boy; committing it to paper as he found opportunity, fifty, or a hundred lines at a time, and arranging them as they were afterwards printed, in the exact order in which they had been referred by imagination to memory. The strength of the latter faculty was
