THE TWO THIEVES, Or The last Stage of AVARICE. O now that the genius of Bewick were mine, What feats would I work with my magical hand! Book learning and books should be banished the land: And for hunger and thirst and such troublesome calls! Every Ale-house should then have a feast on its walls. The Traveller would hang his wet clothes on a chair; Let them smoke, let them burn, not a straw would he care; For the Prodigal Son, Joseph's Dream and his Sheaves, Oh, what would they be to my tale of two Thieves? Little Dan is unbreeched, he is three birth-days old; His Grandsire that age more than thirty times told; There are ninety good seasons of fair and foul weather Between them, and both go a-stealing together. With chips is the Carpenter strewing his floor? Old Daniel begins, he stops short-and his eye Dan once had a heart which was moved by the wires Of manifold pleasures and many desires: And what if he cherished his purse? 'Twas no more Than treading a path trod by thousands before. 'Twas a path trod by thousands; but Daniel is one The Pair sally forth hand in hand: ere the sun They hunt through the streets with deliberate tread, And each in his turn is both leader and led; And, wherever they carry their plots and their wiles, Every face in the village is dimpled with smiles. Neither checked by the rich nor the needy they roam ; For gray-headed Dan has a daughter at home, Who will gladly repair all the damage that's done; And three, were it asked, would be rendered for one. Old Man! whom so oft I with pity have eyed, A whirl-blast from behind the hill Rushed o'er the wood with startling sound: And showers of hail-stones pattered round. Of tallest hollies, tall and green; |