Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE COUNTRY CURATE, by HENRY TAYLOR (1800-1886)


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE COUNTRY CURATE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: In t' other hundred, o'er yon swarthy moor
Last Line: And falls, alas! Unpitied, as he lived before.
Subject(s): Healing; Sabbath; Cures; Sunday


IN t' other hundred, o'er yon swarthy moor,
Deep in the mire with tawny rush beset,
Where bleak sea-breezes echo from the shore
And foggy damps infect the noontide heat,
There lies a country curate's dismal seat:
View well those barren heaths with sober eye,
And wonder how a man can live so wretchedly.

See, to the farmer's yard where close allied
A ragged church th' adjacent dykes commands;
One bell the steeple fills (the tinker's pride!),
The beams are wreathed about with hempen bands,
Wove, as the roof decayed, by pious hands.
Drops from the thatch still keep the whitewash wet:
God bless the holy man that dares to preach in it!

The house stands near, this church's foster-brother,
On crutches, both advanced in hoary eld;
A double rail runs from the one to t' other,
And saves the curate from the dirty field,
Where muck of various kind and hue is melled:
O'er this each Sunday to the church he climbs
And, to preserve his ancient cassock, risks his limbs.

Him liveth near, in dirty neighbourhood,
His clerk, a blacksmith, he of sallow hue,
Whose empty cellar long hath open stood,
A certain sign of penury or rue;
Him would the curate fain persuade to brew.
Still happy man, if I should leave untold
The shrew, who of his life shrill government doth hold.

The well-known power of an English wife
Ne day nor night she ceases to explain;
Her wit unreined promotes eternal strife,
Her beauty makes her arrogant and vain,
And both conspire to sharpen her disdain,
While rank ill-nature poisons all his joys,
Confused in endless squabble and unceasing noise.

Eight years hath heaven plagued 'em with a boy,
Who hates a sister younger by a year;
Whose hungry, meagre looks, sans life or joy,
They view, and frown upon the wrangling pair
(Who like two rav'nous locusts do appear
On one small flower), repent that e'er they sped,
Since Cupid's golden shafts they find are tipped with lead.

Each sun arises in a noisome fog;
Tired of their beds, they rise as soon as light.
With like disgust their summers on they drag,
And o'er a few stray chips the winter night:
Such is the married Essex-curate's plight!
Though seasons change, no sense of change they know,
But look with discontent on all things here below.

When meagre Lent her famished look uprears,
Her eyes indent with penury and pine,
Forth go the hungry family to prayers
And pious sermon, while the farmers dine.
In vain the children for their meals repine:
The blooming fields administer no cheer,
Joyless they view the purple promise of the year.

Summer attends them with fresh troubles plied;
His breeches hung aloft for winter's wear,
He spies the flocks fly the returning tide,
And every tenth he wishes to his share:
Now to the hayfield trudge the hapless pair,
And, if they kindly treat the country folk,
They compliment his rector with the biggest cock.

Now autumn fruitful fills the teeming mead,
And plenty frees the farmer's heart from care;
Meantime the thought of surplice-fees delayed,
And th' hollow gulping of the filtered beer,
Unpaid for yet! distract his mind with fear:
No hopes another vessel to procure,
Unless with learned scraps he funs th' admiring brewer.

When icy bands the stiffened waves enfold,
At grudging neighbour's is he often seen,
Chafing with borrowed heat the outward cold;
But oh! no beer to thaw the cold within;
And then his wife pursues with hideous din:
Thence in the barn he muses what to say
To mend, yet not offend, her on next Sabbath-day.

Still worse and worse her lashing tongue he feels,
The spurns of fortune and the weight of years.
The post-horse thus, an ancient racer, reels:
No longer now a steady course he steers,
His weak knees tremble and he hangs his ears;
He sweats, he totters, covered o'er with gore,
And falls, alas! unpitied, as he lived before.





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