'LIFT ye your bleating charge, when daylight fled,
' Near where the hay-stack lifts its snowy head?
'Whose fence of bushy furze, so close and warm,
' May stop the slanting bullets of the storm.
'For, hark! it blows; a dark and dismal night:
' Heaven guide the trav'eller's fearful steps aright!
'Now from the woods, mistrustful and sharp-ey'd,
' The  in silent darkness seems to glide,
'Stealing around us, list'ning as he goes,
' If chance the Cock or stamm'ring capon crows,
'Or Goose, or nodding Duck, should darkling cry,
' As if appriz'd of lurking danger night:
'Destruction waits them,  if e'er you fail
'To bolt their doors against the driving gale.
' Strew'd you (still mindful of the unshelter'd head)
'Burdens of straw, the cattle's welcome bed?
' Thine heart should feel, what thou may'st hourly see,
'
' Of pain's unsavoury cup though thou may'st taste,
'(The wrath of Winter from the bleak north-east,)
' Thine utmost suff'rings in the coldest day
' A period terminates, and joys repay.
Perhaps e'en now, whilst her those joys we boast,
'Full many a bark rides down the neighb'ring coast,
Where the high northern waves tremendous roar,
' Drove down by blasts from  icy shore.
'The  there, less fortunate than thou,
' Feels all thy pains in all the gusts that blow;
His freezing hands now drench'd, now dry, by turns;
'Now lost, now seen, the distant light that burns,
' On some tall cliff uprais'd, a flaming guide,
'That throws its friendly radiance o'er the tide.
' His labours cease not with declining day,
'But toils and perils mark his watry way;
' And whilst in peaceful dreams secure  lie,
'The ruthless whirlwinds rage along the sky,
' Round his head whistling; ... and shalt thou repine,
'Whilst this protecting roof still shelters thine?'