There dropsied infants wail without redress,
And all is want and wo and wretchedness:
Yet, should these boys, with bodies bronzed and bare,
High-swoln and hard, outlive that lack of care,
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Forced on some farm, the unexerted strength,
Though loth to action, is compell'd at length,
When warm'd by health, as serpents in the spring
Aside their slough of indolence they fling.
Yet, ere they go, a greater evil comes—