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