Keen blows the blast and ceaseless rain descends;
The half-stripped hedge a sorry shelter lends,
and he thinks it would be nice to have a hovel, no matter how
small, to take refuge in, and at once sets about its
construction.
In some sequestered nook, embanked around,
Sods for its walls and straw in burdens bound;
Dried fuel hoarded is his richest store,
And circling smoke obscures his little door;
Whence creeping forth to duty's call he yields,
And strolls the Crusoe of the lonely fields.
On whitehorn tow'ring, and the leafless rose,
A frost-nipped feast in bright vermilion glows;
Where clust'ring sloes in glossy order rise,
He crops the loaded branch, a cumbrous prize;
And on the flame the splutt'ring fruit he rests,
Placing green sods to seat the coming guests;
His guests by promise; playmates young and gay;
But ah! fresh pastures lure their steps away!
He sweeps his hearth, and homeward looks in vain,
Till feeling Disappointment's cruel pain
His fairy revels are exchanged for rage,
His banquet marred, grown dull his hermitage,
The field becomes his prison, till on high
Benighted birds to shades and coverts fly.
"The field becomes his prison," and the thought of this trival
restraint, which is yet felt so poignantly, brings to mind an
infinitely greater one. Look, he says -
From the poor bird-boy with his roasted sloes
to the miserable state of those who are confined in dungeons,
deprived of daylight and the sight of the green earth, whose
minds perpetually travel back to happy scenes,
Trace and retrace the beaten worn-out way,
whose chief bitterness it is to be forgotten and see no
familiar friendly face.
"Winter" is, I think, the best of the four parts it gives the
idea that the poem was written as it stands, from "Spring"
onwards, that by the time he got to the last part the writer
had acquired a greater ease and assurance. At all events it
is less patchy and more equal. It is also more sober in tone,
as befits the subject, and opens with an account of the
domestic animals on the farm, their increased dependence on
man and the compassionate feelings they evoke in us. He is,
we feel, dealing with realities, always from the point of view
of a boy of sensitive mina and tender heart - one taken in
boyhood from this life before it had wrought any change in
him. For in due time the farm boy, however fine his spirit
may be, must harden and grow patient and stolid in heat and
cold and wet, like the horse that draws the plough or cart;
and as he hardens he grows callous. In his wretched London
garret if any change came to him it was only to an increased
love and pity for the beasts he had lived among, who looked
and cried to him to be fed. He describes it well, the frost
and bitter cold, the hungry cattle following the cart to the
fields, the load of turnips thrown out on the hard frozen
ground; but the turnips too are frozen hard and they cannot
eat them until Giles, following with his beetle, splits them
up with vigorous blows, and the cows gather close round him,
sending out a cloud of steam from their nostrils.
The dim short winter day soon ends, but the sound of the
flails continues in the barns till long after dark before the
weary labourers end their task and trudge home. Giles, too,
is busy at this time taking hay to the housed cattle, many a
sweet mouthful being snatched from the load as he staggers
beneath it on his way to the racks. Then follow the
well-earned hours of "warmth and rest" by the fire in the big
old kitchen which he describes: -
For the rude architect, unknown to fame,
(Nor symmetry nor elegance his aim),
Who spread his floors of solid oak on high,
On beams rough-hewn from age to age that lie,
Bade his wide fabric unimpaired sustain
The orchard's store, and cheese, and golden grain;
Bade from its central base, capacious laid,
The well-wrought chimney rear its lofty head
Where since hath many a savoury ham been stored,
And tempests howled and Christmas gambols roared.
The tired ploughman, steeped in luxurious heat, by and by
falls asleep and dreams sweetly until his chilblains or the
snapping fire awakes him, and he pulls himself up and goes
forth yawning to give his team their last feed, his lantern
throwing a feeble gleam on the snow as he makes his way to the
stable. Having completed his task, he pats the sides of those
he loves best by way of good-night, and leaves them to their
fragrant meal. And this kindly action on his part suggests
one of the best passages of the poem. Even old well-fed
Dobbin occasionally rebels against his slavery, and released
from his chains will lift his clumsy hoofs and kick,
"disdainful of the dirty wheel." Short-sighted Dobbin!
Thy chains were freedom, and thy toils repose,
Could the poor post-horse tell thee all his woes;
Show thee his bleeding shoulders, and unfold
The dreadful anguish he endures for gold;
Hired at each call of business, lust, or rage,
That prompts the traveller on from stage to stage.
Still on his strength depends their boasted speed;
For them his limbs grow weak, his bare ribs bleed;
And though he groaning quickens at command,
Their extra shilling in the rider's hand
Becomes his bitter scourge . . . .
The description, too long to quote, which follows of the
tortures inflicted on the post-horse a century ago, is almost
incredible to us, and we flatter ourselves that such things
would not be tolerated now.
