Classic Poem

A CROSS my Neighbour's waste of whins
For roods the rabbit burrows;
You scarce can see where first begins
His range of steaming furrows;
I am not sad that he is great,
He does not ask my pardon;
Beside his wall I cultivate
My modest patch of garden.

I envy not my Neighbour's trees;
To me it nowise matters
Whether in east or western breeze
His " dry-tongued laurel patters."
Me too the bays become; but still,
I sleep without narcotics,
Though he should bind his brows at will
With odorous exotics.

Let Goodman Greenfat, glad to dine,
With true bon-vivant's benison,
Extol my Neighbour's wit and wine —
His virtue and his venison:
I care not! Still for me the gorse
Will blaze about the thicket;
The Common's purblind pauper horse
Will peer across my wicket;

For me the geese will thread the furze,
In hissing file, to follow
The tinker's sputtering wheel that whirs
Across the breezy hollow;
And look, where smoke of gipsy huts
Curls blue against the bushes —
That little copse is famed for nuts,
For nightingales and thrushes!

But hark! I hear my Neighbour's drums!
Some dreary deputation
Of Malice or of Wonder comes
In guise of Adulation.
Poor Neighbour! Though you " call the tune,"
One little pinch of care is
Enough to clog a whole balloon
Of aura popularis;

Not amulets, nor epiderm
As tough as armadillo's,
Can shield you if Suspicion worm
Between your poppied pillows;
And though on ortolans you sup,
Beside you shadowy sitters
Can pour in your ungenial cup
Unstimulating bitters.

Let Envy crave, and Avarice save;
Let Folly ride her circuit;
I hold that — on this side the grave —
To find one's vein and work it,
To keep one's wants both fit and few,
To cringe to no condition,
To count a truthful friend or two —
May bound a man's ambition.

Swell, South-wind, swell my Neighbour's sails;
Fill, Fortune, fill his coffers;
If Fate has made his r├┤le the whale's,
And me the minnow's offers,
I am not sad that he is great;
He need not ask my pardon;
Beside his wall I cultivate
My modest patch of garden.