While, fcourg'd by famine from the smiling land,
The mournful peasant leads his humble band;
And while he finks, without one arm to fave,
The country blooms-a garden and a grave.
Where then, ah! where shall poverty refide,
To 'scape the preffure of contiguous pride?
If to fome common's fencelefs limits stray'd,
He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade,
Thofe fenceless fields the fons of wealth divide,
And even the bare-worn common is deny'd.
If to the city fped-what waits him there?
To fee profufion that he must not share;
To fee ten thousand baneful arts combin'd
To pamper luxury, and thin mankind;
To fee each joy the fons of pleasure know,
Extorted from his fellow-creatures' woe;
Here, while the courtier glitters in brocade,
There the pale artist plies the fickly trade;
Here, while the proud their long-drawn pomps display,
There the black gibbet glooms beside the way:
The dome where pleasure holds her midnight reign,
Here, richly deckt, admits the gorgeous train;
Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing fquare,
The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare.
Sure fcenes like thefe no troubles e'er annoy!
Sure thefe denote one univerfal joy!
Are these thy ferious thoughts?-Ah, turn thine eyes
Where the poor houseless shiv'ring female lies!
She once, perhaps, in village plenty bleft,
Has wept at tales of innocence diftreft;
Her modeft looks the cottage might adorn,
Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn:
Now loft to all-her friends, her virtue fled,
Near her betrayer's door she lays her head,
And, pinch'd with cold, and shrinking from the show'r,
With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour,
When idly firft, ambitious of the town,
She left her wheel and robes of country brown.
Do thine, fweet Auburn-thine, the lovelieft train, Do thy fair tribes participate her pain?
Even now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led,
At proud men's doors they ask a little bread!
Ah! no. To distant climes, a dreary scene,
Where half the convex world intrudes between-
Thro' torrid tracts with fainting steps they go,
Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe.
Far different there from all that charm'd before,
The various terrors of that horrid shore;
Those blazing funs that dart a downward ray,
And fiercely fhed intolerable day;
Thofe matted woods where birds forget to fing,
But filent bats in drowfy clusters cling;
Those pois'nous fields, with rank luxuriance crown'd,
Where the dark scorpion gathers death around;
Where, at each step, the stranger fears to wake
The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake!
Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey,
And savage men, more murd'rous still than they;
While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies,
Mingling the ravag'd landscape with the skies:
Far different these from every former scene-
The cooling brook, the graffy vested green,
The breezy covert of the warbling grove,
That only shelter'd thefts of harmless love.
Good heav'n! what forrows gloom'd that parting day
That call'd them from their native walks away;
When the poor exiles, every pleasure past,
Hung round the bow'rs, and fondly look'd their laft,
And took a long farewell, and wish'd, in vain,
For feats like these beyond the western main;
And, fhudd'ring ftill to face the distant deep,
Return'd and wept, and still return'd to weep!
The good old fire, the first prepar'd to go
To new-found worlds, and wept for others' woe;
But for himself, in conscious virtue brave,
He only wish'd for worlds beyond the grave:
His lovely daughter, lovelier in her tears,
The fond companion of his helpless years,
Silent went next, neglectful of her charms,
And left a lover's for her father's arms:
With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes,
And bleft the cot where every pleasure rofe;
And kifs'd her thoughtless babes with many a tear,
And clafp'd them close, in forrow doubly dear;
Whilft her fond husband ftrove to lend relief
In all the filent manliness of grief.
O luxury! thou curft by heaven's decree,
How ill exchang'd are things like these for thee!
How do thy potions, with infidious joy,
Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy!
Kingdoms by thee, to fickly greatness grown,
Boast of a florid vigour not their own;
At every draught more large and large they grow,
A bloated mafs of rank unwieldy woe;
Till, fapp'd their strength, and every part unfound,
Down, down they fink, and spread a ruin round.
Even now the devastation is begun,
And half the bufinefs of deftruction done;
Even now, methinks, as pond'ring here I stand,
I see the rural virtues leave the land;
Down where yon anchoring veffel fpreads the fail
That idly waiting flaps with every gale-
Downward they move, a melancholy band,
Pafs from the fhore, and darken all the ftrand;
Contented toil, and hospitable care,
And kind connubial tenderness, are there;
And piety, with wishes plac'd above,
And fteady loyalty, and faithful love.
And thou, fweet Poetry, thou lovelieft maid,
Still firft to fly where fenfual joys invade;
Unfit, in these degenerate times of shame,
To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame;
Dear, charming nymph, neglected and decry'd,
My fhame in crowds, my folitary pride;
Thou fource of all my blifs, and all my woe,
That found'ft me poor at first, and keep'st me so;
Thou guide by which the nobler arts excel,
Thou nurse of every virtue-fare thee well!-
Farewell! and, oh, where'er thy voice be try'd,
On Torno's cliffs, or Pambamarca's fide;
Whether where equinoctial fervors glow,
Or winter wraps the polar world in fnow-
Still let thy voice, prevailing over time,
Redress the rigours of th' inclement clime;
Aid flighted truth; with thy perfuafive ftrain,
Teach erring man to fpurn the rage of gain;
Teach him that states, of native ftrength poffeft,
Though very poor, may fiill be very bleft;
That trade's proud empire haftes to swift decay,
As ocean fweeps the labour'd mole away;
While felf-dependent power can time defy,
As rocks refift the billows and the fky.
"But now the founds of population fail---
"No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale---
"No busy steps the grafs-grown foot-way tread,
"But all the bloomy flufh of life is fled;
"All but yon widow'd, folitary thing,
"That feebly bends befide the plashy spring;
"She, wretched matron, forc'd, in age, for bread,
"To ftrip the brook with mantling creffes fpread,
"To pick her wintry faggot from the thorn,
"To feek her nightly fhed, and weep till morn;
"She only left of all the harmless train,
"The fad hiftorian of the penfive plain."
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