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GEORGE CRABBE (1754-1832)

FROM TALES

TALE X-THE LOVER'S JOURNEY

On either side

Is level fen, a prospect wild and wide, With dikes on either hand by ocean's self supplied:

Far on the right the distant sea is seen,
And salt the springs that feed the marsh
between.

Beneath an ancient bridge the straitened flood
Rolls through its sloping banks of slimy mud;
Near it a sunken boat resists the tide,
That frets and hurries to th' opposing side;
The rushes sharp, that on the borders grow,
Bend their brown flow'rets to the stream
below,

Impure in all its course, in all its progress slow:

Here a grave Flora scarcely deigns to bloom, Nor wears a rosy blush, nor sheds perfume: The few dull flowers that o'er the place are

spread

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Trained but yet savage, in her speaking face
He marked the features of her vagrant race;
When a light laugh and roguish leer ex-
pressed

The vice implanted in her youthful breast:
Forth from the tent her elder brother came,
Who seemed offended, yet forbore to blame
The young designer, but could only trace 161
The looks of pity in the traveller's face:
Within, the father, who from fences nigh
Had brought the fuel for the fire's supply,
Watched now the feeble blaze, and stood de-
jected by.

On ragged rug, just borrowed from the bed,
And by the hand of coarse indulgence fed,
In dirty patchwork negligently dressed,
Reclined the wife, an infant at her breast;
In her wild face some touch of grace re-
mained,

Of vigour palsied and of beauty stained; 171
Her bloodshot eyes on her unheeding mate
Were wrathful turned, and seemed her wants
to state,

Cursing his tardy aid her mother there With gipsy-state engrossed the only chair; Solemn and dull her look; with such she stands,

And reads the milk-maid's fortune in her hands,

Tracing the lines of life; assumed through years,

Each feature now the steady falsehood wears; With hard and savage eye she views the food,

And grudging pinches their intruding brood; Last in the group, the worn-out grandsire

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