And hold their glimmering tapers to the sun."

The last line of which he conveyed, no doubt unconsciously, from Young.
Nothing can be more winning than the picture of the village home thus
presented. And outside it, the plot of carefully-tended ground, with not
only fruits and herbs but space reserved for a few choice flowers, the
rich carnation and the "pounced auricula":--

"Here, on a Sunday eve, when service ends,
Meet and rejoice a family of friends:
All speak aloud, are happy and are free,
And glad they seem, and gaily they agree.
What, though fastidious ears may shun the speech,
Where all are talkers, and where none can teach;
Where still the welcome and the words are old,
And the same stories are for ever told;
Yet theirs is joy that, bursting from the heart,
Prompts the glad tongue these nothings to impart;
That forms these tones of gladness we despise,
That lifts their steps, that sparkles in their eyes;
That talks or laughs or runs or shouts or plays,
And speaks in all there looks and all their ways."

This charming passage is thoroughly in Goldsmith's vein, and even shows
markedly the influence of his manner, and yet it is no mere echo of
another poet. The scenes described are those which had become dear and
familiar to Crabbe during years of residence in Leicestershire and
inland Suffolk. And yet at this very juncture, Crabbe's poetic
conscience smites him. It is not for him, he remembers, to deal only
with the sweeter aspects, though he knows them to exist, of village