Spreads its long arms amidst the wat'ry roar,
Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore;
While the pent ocean, rising o'er the pile,
Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile;
The slow canal, the yellow-blossom'd vale,
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail,
The crowded mart, the cultivated plain,
A new creation rescued from his reign.

Thus, while around the wave-subjected soil
Impels the native to repeated toil,
Industrious habits in each bosom reign,
And industry begets a love of gain.
Hence all the good from opulence that springs,
With all those ills surperfluous treasure brings,
Are here display'd. There much-lov'd wealth
imparts

Convenience, plenty, elegance, and arts;
But view them closer, craft and fraud appear;
E'en liberty itself is barter'd here!

At gold's superior charms all freedom flies;
The needy sell it, and the rich man buys;
A land of tyrants and a den of slaves,
Here wretches seek dishonourable graves.
And, calmly beut, to servitude conform,
Dull as their lakes that slumber in the storm.
Heavens! how unlike their Belgic sires of
old!

The self-dependant lordlings stand alone;
All claims that bind and sweeten life unknown;
Here, be the bonds of nature feebly held,
Minds combat minds, repelling and repell'd.
Ferments arise, imprison'd factions roar,
Repress'd ambition struggles round her shore;
Till, over-wrought, the general system feels
Its motions stop, or phrensy fire the wheels.

Nor this the worst. As nature's ties decay,
As duty, love, and honour fail to sway,
Fictitious bonds, the bonds of wealth and
Jaw,

Still gather strength, and force unwilling awe.
Hence all obedience bows to these alone,
And talent sinks, and merit weeps unknown;
Till time may come, when stripp'd of all her
charms,

|| The land of scholars and the nurse of arms,
Where noble stems transmit the patriot fame,
Where kings have toir'd, and poets wrote for
fame,

Rough, poor, content, ungovernably bold;
War in each breast, and freedom on each brow;
How much unlike the sons of Britain now!

One sink of level avarice shall lie,

And scholars, soldiers, kings, unhonour'd die.
Yet think not thus, when freedom's ills I
state,

I mean to flatter kings, or court the great:
Ye pow'rs of truth that bid my soul aspire,
Far from my bosom drive the low desire!
And thou, fair freedom, taught alike to feel
The rabble's rage, and tyrant's angry steel;
Thou transitory flow'r, alike undoue
By proud contempt, or favour's fost'ring sun,
Still may thy blooms the changeful clime eu-
dure,

Fir'd at the sound, my genius spreads ber
wing
[spring;
And flics where Britain courts the western
Where lawns extend that scorn Arcadian
pride;
[glide:
And brighter streams than fam'd Hydaspes
There all around the gentlest breezes stray,
There gentle music melts on ev'ry spray;
Creation's mildest charms are there combin'd;
Extremes are only in the master's mind!
Stern o'er each bosom reason holds her state,
With daring aims irregularly great :
Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
I see the lords of human kind pass by;
Intent on high designs a thoughtful band,
By forms unfashion'd fresh from nature's hand;
Fierce in their native hardiness of soul,
True to imagin'd right above controul:
While e'en the peasant boasts these rights to Contracting regal pow'r to stretch their own;
When I behold a factious band agree
To call it freedom when themselves are free;
Each wanton judge new peual statutes draw,
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the
law;
[roam,
The wealth of climes, where savage nations
Pillag'd from slaves, to purchase slaves at
home;

scan,
And learns to venerate himself as man.

Thine, freedom, thine the blessings pictur'd
bere,
Thiue are those charms, that dazzle and en-
dear;

Too blest indeed were such without alloy,
But foster'd e'en by freedom ills annoy.
That independance Britons prize too high,
Keeps mau from man, and breaks the social tie;

I only would repress them to secure:
For just experience tells, in ev'ry soil,
That those who think must govern those who

toil;
And all that freedom's highest aims can reach,
Is but to lay proportion'd loads on each.
Hence, should one order disproportion'd grow,
Its double weight must ruin all below.

O, then, how blind to all that truth requires,
Who think it freedom when a part aspires,
Calm in my soul, nor apt to rise in arms,
Except when fast approaching danger warms:
But when coutending chiefs blockade the

throne,

Fear, pity, justice, indignation start,

Tear off reserve, aud bare my swelling heart;

1

I still had hopes, for pride attends us still,
Amidst the swains to shew my book-learn'd
skill,

Around my fire, an evening group to draw,
And tell of all I felt, and all I saw;
And, as a hare, whom hounds and horus
pursue,

Pants to the place from whence at first he flew,
I still had hopes, my long vexations past,
|| Here to return, and die at home at last.

wall;

O blest retirement, friend to life's decline,

And trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's Retreat from care, that never must be mine! How blest is he, who crowns, in shades like these,

hand,

Far, far away thy children leave the land.

A youth of labour with an age of ease;
Who quits a world where strong temptations
try,

Il fares the land, to hast'ning ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay:
Princes and Lords may flourish or may fade;
A breath can make them as a breath has made:
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroy'd, can never he supplied.
A time there was, ere England's griefs be-
gan,
[man;
When every rood of ground maintain`d its
For him light labour spread her wholesome

And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly!
For him no wretches, born to work and weep,
Explore the mine, or tempt the dang`rous deep;
No surly porter stands in guilty state,
To spurn imploring famine from the gate;
But on he moves to meet his latter end,
Angles around; befriending virtue's friend;
Sinks to the grave with unperceiv'd decay,
While resignation gently slopes the way;
And, all bis prospects bright'ning to the last,
His heaven commences ere the world be past!
Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's
close,

One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain;
No more thy glassy brook reflects the day,
But, chok'd with sedges, works its weedy way;
Along thy glades, a solitary guest,
The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest;
Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies,
And tires their echoes with anvaried cries.
Sunk are thy bow'rs in shapeless ruin all,
And the long grass o'ertops the mould'ring

store;

Just gave what life requir'd, but gave no more:
His best companions, innocence and health;
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.
But times are alter'd trade's unfeeling

train

Up yonder hill the village murmur rose;
There as I pass'd, with careless steps and slow,
The mingling notes came soften'd from below;
The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung,
The sober herd that low'd to meet their young,
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool,
The playful children just let loose from school,
The watch-dog's voice that bay'd the whis-
p'ring wind,

|

And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind;
These all in sweet confusion sought the shade,
And fill'd each pause the nightingale had made.
But now the sounds of population fail,
No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale,
No busy steps the grass-grown footway tread,
But all the bloomy flush of life is fled:
All but yon widow'd, solitary thing,
That feebly bend beside the plashy spring;
She, wretched matron! forc'd in age for bread,
To strip the brook with mantling cresses
spread,

To pick her wintry faggot from the thorn,
To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn;
She only left, of all the harmless train,
The sad bistorian of the pensive plain:
Near yonder copse, where ouce the garden
smir'd,
And still where many a garden flow'r grows
wild,

Vain transitory splendour! could not all
Reprieve the tott'ring mansion from its fall?
Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart
Au hour's importance to the poor man's heart;
Thither no more the peasant shall repair
To sweet oblivion of his daily care;

No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale,
No more the woodman's ballad shall prevail;
No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear,
Relax his pond'rous strength, and lean to hear;
The host himself no longer shall be found,
Careful to see the mantling bliss go round;
Nor coy the maid, half willing to be prest,
Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest.

Yes! let the rich deride, the prond disdain,
These simple blessings of the lowly train:
To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm, than all the gloss of art:
Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play,
The soul adopts, and owns their first-born
sway;

Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind,
Unenvied, unmolested, unconfin`d :
But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade,
With all the freaks of wanton wealth array'd,
In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain,
The toiling pleasure sickens into pain ;
And, ev'n while fashion's brightest arts decoy,||
The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy?

Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen who sur
vey,

The rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay,
'Tis your's to judge how wide the limits stand
Between a splendid and a happy land.
Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted
ore,

And shouting folly hails them from her shore;
Hoards, ev'n beyond the miser's wish, abound,
And rich men flock from all the world around;
Yet count our gains: this wealth is but a name
That leaves our useful product still the same.
Not so the loss: the mau of wealth and pride
Takes up a space that many poor supplied;
Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds,||
Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds;
The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth,
Has robb'd the neighb'ring fields of half their
growth;

But when those charms are past (for charms
are frail)

When time advances, and when lovers fail,
She then shines forth, solicitous to bless,
In all the glaring impotence of dress.
Thus fares the land, by luxury betray'd,

⠀

In nature's simplest charms at first array'd;
But, verging to decline, its splendours rise,
Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise.
While, scourg'd by famine from the smiling
land,

The mournful peasant leads his humble band;
And while he sinks, without one arm to save,
The country blooms-a garden and a grave!

Where then, ah where, shall poverty reside,
To 'scape the pressure of contiguous pride?
If to some common's fenceless limits stray'd,
He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade,
Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth di-
vide,

And ev'n the bare-worn common is denied.

If to the city speed-what waits him there?
To see profusion that he must not share;
To see ten thousand baneful arts combin'd
To pamper luxury, and thin mankind;
To see each joy the sous of pleasure know
Extorted from his fellow-creature's woe.
Here, while the courtier glitters in brocade,
There the pale artist plies the sickly trade;
Here, while the proud their long-drawn pomp
display,

His seat, where solitary sports are seen,
Indignant spurns the cottage from the green;
Around the world each needful product flies,
For all the luxuries the world supplies.
While thus the land adorn'd for pleasure all,
In barren splendour feebly waits the fall.

As some fair female, unadorn'd and plain,
Secure to please while youth confirms her reign,
Slights ev'ry borrow'd charm that dress sup-
plies:
Nor shares with art the triumph of her eyes:

There the black gibbet glooms beside the way.
The dome where pleasure holds her midnight
reign,

Here, richly deck'd, admits the gorgeous train ;
Tumultuous grandeur crouds the blazing

square,

The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare.
Sure scenes like these no troubles e'er annoy!
Sure these denote one universal joy!
Are these thy serious thoughts? Ah, turn thine
eyes
Where the poor houseless shiv'ring female lies.
She, once, perhaps, in village plenty blest,
Has wept at tales of innoceuce distrest;
Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn;
Now lost 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 first, ambitious of the town,
She left her wheel, and robes of country brown.
Do thine, sweet Auburn, thine, the loveliest
train,

Do thy fair tribes participate her pain?
Ev'n now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led,
At proud men's doors they ask a little bread!