Book 1 by George Crabbe | Poetic Reveries

THE village life, and every care that reigns

O'er youthful peasants and declining swains;

What labour yields, and what, that labour past,

Age, in its hour of languor, finds at last;

What forms the real picture of the poor,

Rejected pastoral tradition

Crabbe opens by claiming the Muse 'can give no more'—he's already decided to reject the entire tradition of idealized rural poetry before the poem begins. This is aggressive.

Demands a song——The Muse can give no more.

Fled are those times, if e'er such times were seen,

When rustic poets prais'd their native green;

No shepherds now in smooth alternate verse,

Their country's beauty or their nymphs' rehearse;

Yet still for these we frame the tender strain,

Still in our lays fond Corydons complain,

Corydons and false shepherds

Corydon is the stock lovesick shepherd from Virgil's Eclogues. Crabbe's point: poets keep recycling this fiction even though real peasants 'never feel' these romantic pains. The literary tradition has nothing to do with actual rural life.

Corydons and false shepherds

Corydon is the stock lovesick shepherd from Virgil's Eclogues. Crabbe's point: poets keep recycling this fiction even though real peasants 'never feel' these romantic pains. The literary tradition has nothing to do with actual rural life.

And shepherds' boys their amorous pains reveal,

The only pains, alas! they never feel.

Corydons and false shepherds

Corydon is the stock lovesick shepherd from Virgil's Eclogues. Crabbe's point: poets keep recycling this fiction even though real peasants 'never feel' these romantic pains. The literary tradition has nothing to do with actual rural life.

On Mincio's banks, in Caesar's bounteous reign,

If Tityrus found the golden age again,

Virgil as the problem

Crabbe names Virgil directly as the source of the false pastoral tradition. By invoking 'the Mantuan song,' he's saying that even the greatest poet corrupted rural poetry into fantasy. Imitation of Virgil means perpetuating lies.

Must sleepy bards the flattering dream prolong,

Mechanic echo's of the Mantuan song?

Virgil as the problem

Crabbe names Virgil directly as the source of the false pastoral tradition. By invoking 'the Mantuan song,' he's saying that even the greatest poet corrupted rural poetry into fantasy. Imitation of Virgil means perpetuating lies.

From truth and nature shall we widely stray,

Where Virgil, not where fancy leads the way?

Yes, thus the Muses sing of happy swains,

Because the Muses never knew their pains:

They boast their peasants' pipes, but peasants now

Resign their pipes and plod behind the plough;

And few amid the rural tribe have time

To number syllables and play with rhyme;

Duck as exception

Stephen Duck was an actual laborer-poet (1705-1756) who wrote while working. Crabbe uses him as proof that the contradiction is nearly impossible: you cannot be both poet and peasant. The rarity proves the rule.

Save honest Duck, what son of verse could share

The poet's rapture and the peasant's care?

Duck as exception

Stephen Duck was an actual laborer-poet (1705-1756) who wrote while working. Crabbe uses him as proof that the contradiction is nearly impossible: you cannot be both poet and peasant. The rarity proves the rule.

Or the great labours of the field degrade

With the new peril of a poorer trade?

From one chief cause these idle praises spring,

That, themes so easy, few forbear to sing;

Ease of false pastoral

Crabbe diagnoses why bad pastoral poetry is everywhere: it requires 'no thought' and no 'deep design.' It's easier to write lies than truth. This explains the genre's persistence—laziness, not incompetence.

They ask no thought, require no deep design,

But swell the song and liquefy the line;

Ease of false pastoral

Crabbe diagnoses why bad pastoral poetry is everywhere: it requires 'no thought' and no 'deep design.' It's easier to write lies than truth. This explains the genre's persistence—laziness, not incompetence.

The gentle lover takes the rural strain,

A nymph his mistress and himself a swain;

With no sad scenes he clouds his tuneful prayer,

But all, to look like her, is painted fair.

I grant indeed that fields and flocks have charms,

For him that gazes or for him that farms;

But when amid such pleasing scenes I trace

The poor laborious natives of the place,

The observational turn

Here Crabbe shifts from theory to what he's actually seen: peasants with bare heads in midday sun, some with 'feebler hands and fainter hearts.' He's moving from abstract critique to specific, observed detail. This is where the poem becomes evidence.

And see the mid-day sun, with fervid ray,

On their bare heads and dewy temples play;

The observational turn

Here Crabbe shifts from theory to what he's actually seen: peasants with bare heads in midday sun, some with 'feebler hands and fainter hearts.' He's moving from abstract critique to specific, observed detail. This is where the poem becomes evidence.

While some, with feebler hands and fainter hearts,

Deplore their fortune, yet sustain their parts,

Tinsel vs. truth

The key word is 'tinsel'—cheap, shiny, fake. Crabbe refuses to hide 'real ills' under decorative language. He's arguing that ornament itself is dishonest when applied to poverty.

Then shall I dare these real ills to hide,

In tinsel trappings of poetic pride?

Tinsel vs. truth

The key word is 'tinsel'—cheap, shiny, fake. Crabbe refuses to hide 'real ills' under decorative language. He's arguing that ornament itself is dishonest when applied to poverty.

No, cast by Fortune on a frowning coast,

Which can no groves nor happy vallies boast;

Where other cares than those the Muse relates.

And other shepherds dwell with other mates;

By such examples taught, I paint the cot,

As truth will paint it, and as bards will not:

Nor you, ye poor, of letter'd scorn complain,

To you the smoothest song is smooth in vain;

O'ercome by labour and bow'd down by time,

Feel you the barren flattery of a rhyme?

Can poets sooth you, when you pine for bread,

By winding myrtles round your ruin'd shed?

Can their light tales your weighty griefs o'erpower,

Or glad with airy mirth the toilsome hour?

Lo! where the heath, with withering brake grown o'er,

Lends the light turf that warms the neighbouring poor;

From thence a length of burning land appears,

Where the thin harvest waves its wither'd ears;

Weeds as moral landscape

The long catalog of weeds (thistles, poppies, charlock, tare) isn't just description—it's showing that nature itself resists cultivation. The land is hostile. This is anti-pastoral: nature doesn't cooperate with labor.

Rank weeds, that every art and care defy,

Reign o'er the land and rob the blighted rye:

Weeds as moral landscape

The long catalog of weeds (thistles, poppies, charlock, tare) isn't just description—it's showing that nature itself resists cultivation. The land is hostile. This is anti-pastoral: nature doesn't cooperate with labor.

There thistles stretch their prickly arms afar,

And to the ragged infant threaten war;

There poppies nodding, mock the hope of toil,

There the blue bugloss paints the sterile soil;

Hardy and high, above the slender sheaf,

The slimy mallow waves her silky leaf;

O'er the young shoot the charlock throws a shade,

And the wild tare clings round the sickly blade;

With mingled tints the rocky coasts abound,

And a sad splendor vainly shines around.

Ruined woman analogy

Crabbe compares the sterile landscape to a seduced and abandoned woman. Both are corrupted, both wear false beauty ('mimic rose'), both hide inner suffering. The comparison equates ecological and sexual exploitation.

So looks the nymph whom wretched arts adorn,

Betray'd by man, then left for man to scorn;

Ruined woman analogy

Crabbe compares the sterile landscape to a seduced and abandoned woman. Both are corrupted, both wear false beauty ('mimic rose'), both hide inner suffering. The comparison equates ecological and sexual exploitation.

Whose cheek in vain assumes the mimic rose.

While her sad eyes the troubled breast disclose;

Whose outward splendor is but Folly's dress,

Exposing most, when most it gilds distress.

Here joyless roam a wild amphibious race,

With sullen woe display'd in every face;

Who, far from civil arts and social fly,

And scowl at strangers with suspicious eye.

Here too the lawless vagrant of the main

Smuggling as rural reality

Crabbe reveals that the 'rural games' of wrestling and ball-throwing have been replaced by illegal smuggling. This isn't nostalgia—it's showing how poverty forces rural laborers into crime. 'Vice' isn't moral corruption; it's economic necessity.

Draws from his plough th' intoxicated swain;

Want only claim'd the labour of the day,

But vice now steals his nightly rest away.

Where are the swains, who, daily labour done,

With rural games play'd down the setting sun;

Who struck with matchless force the bounding ball,

Or made the pond'rous quoit obliquely fall;

While some huge Ajax, terrible and strong,

Engag'd some artful stripling of the throng,

And foil'd beneath the young Ulysses fell;

When peals of praise the merry mischief tell?

Where now are these? Beneath yon cliff they stand,

To show the freighted pinnace where to land;

To load the ready steed with guilty haste,

To fly in terror o'er the pathless waste,

Or when detected in their straggling course,

To foil their foes by cunning or by force;

Or yielding part (when equal knaves contest)

To gain a lawless passport for the rest.

Here wand'ring long amid these frowning fields,

I fought the simple life that Nature yields;

Rapine and Wrong and Fear usurp'd her place,

And a bold, artful, surly, savage race;

Who, only skill'd to take the finny tribe,

The yearly dinner, or septennial bribe,

Wait on the shore, and as the waves run high,

On the tost vessel bend their eager eye;

Which to their coast directs its vent'rous way,

Coastal predation

The 'amphibious race' waiting on shore aren't romantic fishermen—they're wreckers. They watch for ships to wreck so they can loot them. Crabbe is describing organized crime as the actual economy of coastal poverty.

Coastal predation

The 'amphibious race' waiting on shore aren't romantic fishermen—they're wreckers. They watch for ships to wreck so they can loot them. Crabbe is describing organized crime as the actual economy of coastal poverty.

Theirs, or the ocean's miserable prey.

As on their neighbouring beach yon swallows stand,

And wait for favouring winds to leave the land;

While still for flight the ready wing is spread:

So waited I the favouring hour, and fled;

Fled from these shores where guilt and famine reign,

And cry'd, Ah! hapless they who still remain;

Who still remain to hear the ocean roar,

Whose greedy waves devour the lessening shore;

Erosion and displacement

The 'greedy waves devour the lessening shore' / 'Sweeps the low hut and all it holds away.' Crabbe describes literal displacement—the poor lose their homes to erosion, then must beg from other poor. Nature and economics both destroy them.

Erosion and displacement

The 'greedy waves devour the lessening shore' / 'Sweeps the low hut and all it holds away.' Crabbe describes literal displacement—the poor lose their homes to erosion, then must beg from other poor. Nature and economics both destroy them.

Till some fierce tide, with more imperious sway,

Sweeps the low hut and all it holds away;

Erosion and displacement

The 'greedy waves devour the lessening shore' / 'Sweeps the low hut and all it holds away.' Crabbe describes literal displacement—the poor lose their homes to erosion, then must beg from other poor. Nature and economics both destroy them.

When the sad tenant weeps from door to door,

And begs a poor protection from the poor.

But these are scenes where Nature's niggard hand

Gave a spare portion to the famish'd land;

Her's is the fault if here mankind complain

Of fruitless toil and labour spent in vain;

But yet in other scenes more fair in view,

Where Plenty smiles—alas! she smiles for few,

Wealth makes poverty worse

In fertile areas where 'Plenty smiles,' the poor see abundance they don't share. Crabbe argues this is worse than scarcity—it's psychological torture. 'The wealth around them makes them doubly poor.'

And those who taste not, yet behold her store,

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Are as the slaves that dig the golden ore,

Wealth makes poverty worse

In fertile areas where 'Plenty smiles,' the poor see abundance they don't share. Crabbe argues this is worse than scarcity—it's psychological torture. 'The wealth around them makes them doubly poor.'

Wealth makes poverty worse

In fertile areas where 'Plenty smiles,' the poor see abundance they don't share. Crabbe argues this is worse than scarcity—it's psychological torture. 'The wealth around them makes them doubly poor.'

The wealth around them makes them doubly poor:

Or will you deem them amply paid in health,

Labour's fair child, that languishes with Wealth?

Go then! and see them rising with the sun,

Through a long course of daily toll to run;

Like him to make the plenteous harvest grow,

And yet not share the plenty they bestow;

See them beneath the dog-star's raging heat,

When the knees tremble and the temples beat;

Behold them leaning on their scythes, look o'er

The labour past, and toils to come explore;

See them alternate suns and showers engage,

Labor as disease

Crabbe uses medical language: laborers 'hoard up aches and anguish for their age.' Work isn't ennobling—it's toxic accumulation. The body stores damage like debt, to be paid in old age.

Labor as disease

Crabbe uses medical language: laborers 'hoard up aches and anguish for their age.' Work isn't ennobling—it's toxic accumulation. The body stores damage like debt, to be paid in old age.

And hoard up aches and anguish for their age;

Thro' fens and marshy moors their steps pursue,

When their warm pores imbibe the evening dew;

Then own that labour may as fatal be

To these thy slaves, as luxury to thee.

Amid this tribe too oft a manly pride

Manly pride as trap

'Manly pride' forces weak young men to work beyond their capacity to hide their weakness. Masculinity becomes a mechanism of self-destruction—they push themselves to death rather than admit inability.

Manly pride as trap

'Manly pride' forces weak young men to work beyond their capacity to hide their weakness. Masculinity becomes a mechanism of self-destruction—they push themselves to death rather than admit inability.

Strives in strong toil the fainting heart to hide;

There may you see the youth of slender frame

Contend with weakness, weariness, and shame;

Yet urg'd along, and proudly loth to yield,

He strives to join his fellows of the field;

Till long contending nature droops at last,

Declining health rejects his poor repast,

His cheerless spouse the coming danger sees,

And mutual murmurs urge the slow disease.

Yet grant them health, 'tis not for us to tell,

Though the head droops not, that the heart is well;

Or will you urge their homely, plenteous fare,

Healthy and plain and still the poor man's share?

Oh! trifle not with wants you cannot feel,

Nor mock the misery of a stinted meal;

Homely not wholesome, plain not plenteous, such

As you who envy would disdain to touch.

Ye gentle souls who dream of rural ease,

Whom the smooth stream and smoother sonnet please;

Go! if the peaceful cot your praises share,

Go look within, and ask if peace be there:

If peace be his—that drooping weary fire,

Or their's, that offspring round their feeble fire,

Or her's, that matron pale, whose trembling hand

Turns on the wretched hearth th' expiring brand.

Nor yet can time itself obtain for these

Life's latest comforts, due respect and ease;

For yonder see that hoary swain, whose age

Can with no cares except its own engage;

Who, propt on that rude staff, looks up to see

The bare arms broken from the withering tree;

On which, a boy, he climb'd the loftiest bough,

Then his first joy, but his sad emblem now.

He once was chief in all the rustic trade,

His steady hand the straitest furrow made;

Full many a prize he won, and still is proud

To find the triumphs of his youth allow'd;

A transient pleasure sparkles in his eyes,

He hears and smiles, then thinks again and sighs:

For now he journeys to his grave in pain;

The rich disdain him; nay, the poor disdain;

Alternate masters now their slave command,

And urge the efforts of his feeble hand;

Who, when his age attempts its task in vain,

With ruthless taunts of lazy poor complain.

Oft may you see him when he tends the sheep,

His winter charge, beneath the hillock weep;

Oft hear him murmur to the winds that blow

O'er his white locks, and bury them in snow;

When rouz'd by rage and muttering in the morn,

He mends the broken hedge with icy thorn.

"Why do I live, when I desire to be

At once from life and life's long labour free?

Like leaves in spring, the young are blown away,

Without the sorrows of a slow decay;

I, like yon wither'd leaf, remain behind,

Nipt by the frost and shivering in the wind;

There it abides till younger buds come on,

As I, now all my fellow swains are gone;

Then, from the riling generation thrust,

It falls, like me, unnotic'd to the dust.

These fruitful fields, these numerous flocks I see,

Are others' gain, but killing cares to me;

To me the children of my youth are lords,

Slow in their gifts but hasty in their words;

Wants of their own demand their care, and who

Feels his own want and succours others too?

A lonely, wretched man, in pain I go,

None need my help and none relieve my woe;

Then let my bones beneath the turf be laid,

And men forget the wretch they would not aid"

Thus groan the old, till by disease opprest,

They taste a final woe, and then they rest.

Their's is yon house that holds the parish poor,

Workhouse as final destination

The parish workhouse is described with brutal specificity: 'Whole walls of mud,' children with no parents, parents with no children, the sick brought there 'to grieve.' It's not a refuge—it's a warehouse for the disposable.

Workhouse as final destination

The parish workhouse is described with brutal specificity: 'Whole walls of mud,' children with no parents, parents with no children, the sick brought there 'to grieve.' It's not a refuge—it's a warehouse for the disposable.

Whole walls of mud scarce bear the broken door;

There, where the putrid vapours flagging, play,

And the dull wheel hums doleful through the day;

There children dwell who know no parents' care,

Parents, who know no children's love, dwell there;

Heart-broken matrons on their joyless bed,

Forsaken wives and mothers never wed;

Dejected widows with unheeded tears,

And crippled age with more than childhood-fears;

The lame, the blind, and, far the happiest they!

The moping idiot and the madman gay.

Here too the sick their final doom receive,

Here brought amid the scenes of grief, to grieve;

Where the loud groans from some sad chamber flow,

Mixt with the clamours of the croud below;

Here sorrowing, they each kindred sorrow scan,

And the cold charities of man to man.

Whose laws indeed for ruin'd age provide,

And strong compulsion plucks the scrap from pride;

But still that scrap is bought with many a sigh,

And pride embitters what it can't deny.

Say ye, opprest by some fantastic woes,

Some jarring nerve that baffles your repose;

Who press the downy couch, while slaves advance

With timid eye, to read the distant glance;

Who with sad prayers the weary doctor teaze

To name the nameless ever-new disease;

Who with mock patience dire complaints endure,

Which real pain, and that alone can cure;

How would ye bear in real pain to lie,

Despis'd, neglected, left alone to die?

How would ye bear to draw your latest breath,

Where all that's wretched paves the way for death?

Such is that room which one rude beam divides,

And naked rafters form the sloping sides;

Where the vile bands that bind the thatch are seen.

And lath and mud is all that lie between;

Save one dull pane, that, coarsely patch'd, gives way

To the rude tempest, yet excludes the day:

Here, on a matted flock, with dust o'erspread,

The drooping wretch reclines his languid head;

For him no hand the cordial cup applies,

Nor wipes the tear that stagnates in his eyes;

No friends with soft discourse his pain beguile,

Nor promise hope till sickness wears a smile.

But soon a loud and hasty summons calls,

Shakes the thin roof, and echoes round the walls;

Anon, a figure enters, quaintly neat,

All pride and business, bustle and conceit;

With looks unalter'd by these scenes of woe,

With speed that entering, speaks his haste to go;

He bids the gazing throng around him fly,

And carries fate and physic in his eye;

A potent quack, long vers'd in human ills,

Parish doctor as murderer

The doctor is a 'potent quack' with a 'murd'rous hand' protected by the parish. He's paid to attend but shows 'impatience' and 'neglect.' Crabbe suggests the system itself is designed to let poor people die efficiently.

Parish doctor as murderer

The doctor is a 'potent quack' with a 'murd'rous hand' protected by the parish. He's paid to attend but shows 'impatience' and 'neglect.' Crabbe suggests the system itself is designed to let poor people die efficiently.

Who first insists the victim whom he kills;

Whole murd'rous hand a drowsy bench protect,

And whose most tender mercy is neglect.

Paid by the parish for attendance here,

He wears contempt upon his sapient sneer;

In haste he seeks the bed where misery lies,

Impatience mark'd in his averted eyes;

And, some habitual queries hurried o'er,

Without reply, he rushes on the door;

His drooping patient, long inur'd to pain,

And long unheeded, knows remonstrance vain;

He ceases now the feeble help to crave

Of man, and mutely hastens to the grave.

But ere his death some pious doubts arise,

Some simple fears which "bold bad" men despise;

Fain would he ask the parish priest to prove

His title certain to the joys above;

For this he sends the murmuring nurse, who calls

The holy stranger to these dismal walls;

And doth not he, the pious man, appear,

He, "passing rich with forty pounds a year?"

Ah! no, a shepherd of a different stock,

And far unlike him, feeds this little flock;

A jovial youth, who thinks his Sunday's task

As much as God or man can fairly ask;

The rest he gives to loves and labours light,

To fields the morning and to feasts the night;

None better skill'd, the noisy pack to guide,

To urge their chace, to cheer them or to chide;

Sure in his shot, his game he seldom mist,

And seldom fail'd to win his game at whist;

Then, while such honours bloom around his head,

Shall he sit sadly by the sick man's bed

To raise the hope he feels not, or with zeal

To combat fears that ev'n the pious feel?

Now once again the gloomy scene explore,

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Left gloomy now; the bitter hour is o'er,

The man of many sorrows sighs no more.

Up yonder hill, behold how sadly slow

The bier moves winding from the vale below;

There lie the happy dead, from trouble free,

And the glad parish pays the frugal fee;

No more, oh! Death, thy victim starts to hear

Churchwarden stern, or kingly overseer;

No more the farmer gets his humble bow,

Death as liberation

The old laborer's death is presented as relief: 'the man of many sorrows sighs no more.' The poor man is 'the best of tyrants' Death can have—he's finally free. This is the only positive outcome the poem offers.

Death as liberation

The old laborer's death is presented as relief: 'the man of many sorrows sighs no more.' The poor man is 'the best of tyrants' Death can have—he's finally free. This is the only positive outcome the poem offers.

Thou art his lord, the best of tyrants thou!

Now to the church behold the mourners come,

Sedately torpid and devoutly dumb;

The village children now their games suspend,

To see the bier that bears their antient friend;

For he was one in all their idle sport,

Children at the funeral

Village children attend the funeral because the dead man 'was one in all their idle sport, / And like a monarch rul'd their little court.' Even in death, his only significance is to children. His entire life was invisible to adults.

Children at the funeral

Village children attend the funeral because the dead man 'was one in all their idle sport, / And like a monarch rul'd their little court.' Even in death, his only significance is to children. His entire life was invisible to adults.

And like a monarch rul'd their little court;

The pliant bow he form'd, the flying ball,

The bat, the wicket, were his labours all;

Him now they follow to his grave, and stand

Silent and sad, and gazing, hand in hand;

While bending low, their eager eyes explore

The mingled relicks of the parish poor:

The bell tolls late, the moping owl flies round,

Fear marks the flight and magnifies the sound;

The busy priest, detain’d by weightier care,

Defers his duty till the day of prayer;

And waiting long, the crowd retire distrest,

Unblessed bones

The poem ends with the priest too busy to perform last rites. The poor man's bones lie 'unblest.' Even in death, the parish denies him spiritual comfort. The final insult is religious abandonment.

To think a poor man’s bones should lie unblest.