The Village and The Newspaper

by George Crabbe

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 sand appears,

Where the thin harvest waves its wither’d ears;

Rank weeds, that every art and care defy,

Reign o’er the land, and rob the blighted rye.

There thistles stretch their prickly arms afar,

And to the ragged infant threaten war;

There poppies nodding, mock the hope of toil,