If age and sickness, poverty and pain, br Should each assault me with alternate plagues, br I know mankind is destin'd to complain, br And I submit to torment and fatigues. br The pious farmer, who ne'er misses pray'rs, br With patience suffers unexpected rain; br He blesses Heav'n for what its bounty spares, br And sees, resign'd, a crop of blighted grain. br But, spite of sermons, farmers would blaspheme, br If a star fell to set their thatch on flame.