The Farmer's Boy: A Rural Poem

Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Charles Bidwell and Distributed
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By ROBERT BLOOMFIELD.
The Third Edition
LONDON: Printed for Vernor and Hood, Poultry and sold by T.C. Rickman, 7, Upper Mary-Le-Bone-Street; Ingram, and Dingle, Bury; Booth, Norwich; Hill, Edinburgh; Archer, and Dugdale, Dublin.
A sonnet has come to my hands, the production,—and nearly the first poetical Production,—of a very young Lady. I have not the Author's consent to publish it: and there is no time to ask it. But I cannot omit adding such a flower to the Wreath of Glory of my Friend. I have therefore ventured to publish it without waiting permission; with one or two slight alterations.
25 Aug. 1800.
If wealth, if honour, at command were mine, And every boast Ambition could desire, The pompous Gifts, sweet Bard, I would resign For the aft Music of thy tuneful Lyre,
Which speaks the soul awake to every charm That Nature open'd from thy humble cot: Speaks powers chill Indigence could not disarm; Proof to Humanity's severest lot.
Thou Friend to Nature, and of Man the Friend; Of every generous and benignant cause; The accents of thy glowing worth, unfeign'd, Live in the cadence of each feeling pause. Here thought, alternate, in the noble Plan Admires the POET, and reveres the Man.
25 Aug. 1800.
Having the satisfaction of introducing to the Public this very pleasing and characteristic POEM, the FARMER'S BOY, I think it will be agreeable to preface it with a short Account of the manner in which it came into my hands: and, which will be much more interesting to every Reader, a little History of the Author, which has been communicated to me by his Brother, and which I shall very nearly transcribe as it lies before me.