"Here the rude clamour of the sportsman's joy,
The gun fast-thund'ring, and the winded horn,
Would tempt the muse to sing the rural game."
But further on he observes,
"These are not subjects for the peaceful muse;
Nor will she stain with such her spotless song;
Then most delighted, when she social sees
The whole mix'd animal-creation round.
Alive and happy; 'Tis not joy to her
This falsely cheerful barbarous game of death."
Cowper, in his task, in speaking in praise of the country, takes
occasion to express his disapprobation of one of the diversions in
question.
"They love the country, and none else, who seek
For their own sake its silence and its shade,
Delights, which who would leave, that has a heart
Susceptible of pity, or a mind,
Cultur'd, and capable of sober thought,
For all the savage din of the swift pack
And clamours of the field? Detested sport
That owes its pleasures to another's pain,
That feeds upon the sobs and dying shrieks
Of harmless nature, dumb, but yet endued
With eloquence, that agonies inspire
Of silent tears, and heart-distending sighs!
Vain tears alas! and sighs, that never find
A corresponding tone in jovial souls!"
In these sentiments of the poets the Quakers, as a religious body, have
long joined.
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