SECTION XX.

Rural pleasures.

1 Sweet Auburn! Loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheer'd the labouring swain,
Where smiling spring its earliest visits paid,
And parting summer's ling'ring glooms delay'd;
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
Seats of my youth, when ev'ry sport could please:
How often have I loiter'd o'er thy green,
Where humble happiness endear'd each scene!
2 How often have I paus'd on ev'ry charm!
The shelter'd cot, the cultivated farm,

3

The never failing brook, the busy mill,

The decent church that topp'd the neighbouring hill; The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade, For talking age, and whispering lovers made.

How often have I bless'd the coming day, When toil, remitting, lent its turn to play, And all the village train, from labour free, Led up their sport beneath the spreading tree! While many a pastime circled in the shade, The young contending as the old survey'd ; And many a gambol frolick o'er the ground, And slights of arts and feats of strength went round; 4 And still, as each repeated pleasure tir'd, Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired; The dancing pair that simply sought renown, By holding out to tire each other down: The swain mistrustless of his smutted face, While secret laughter titter'd round the place; The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love,

5

The matron's glance that would those looks reprove.
Sweet was the sound when oft at evening's close,
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 milk maid 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 watchdog's voice, that bay'd the whisp'ring wind;
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind;
These all in soft confusion, sought the shade,
And fill'd each pause the nightingale had made,

SECTION XXI.

The Hermit's way to be happy.

1 An old hermit there was and he liv'd in a cave,
Who the way to be happy 'twas said he could pave;
Wanting sorely to learn it, I went to his cell,

And no sooner was there than the hermit said ' Well,
I perceive, by your looks, you ail something, young man,
Tell me, then, all your wants! I'll befriend if I can,'
Why, dear Hermit,' I answered, you guess very right,
And I'll tell you the cause of this visit to night.

2 The true way to be happy, I hear you can teach,
Which I want much to learn, so entreat you to preach
Or, if simple, I beg you to write me the plan
In plain, legible characters, short as you can."
Upon this, the old Hermit then took up his pen,
Wrote these lines and said 'read them again and again,'
"It is being, and doing, and having, that make
All the pleasures and pains of which mortals partake :
Now to be what God pleases, to do a man's best,
And to have a good heart, is THE WAY TO BE BLEST.'

SECTION XXII.

Ravages of Dissipation.

1 Not the jaws of Charybdis nor the hoarse rocks of Scylla, Not all the fell dangers that lurk in the deep,

Not the earthquake's deep yawn, nor the volcano's lava, Not the pestilence's breath, nor the hurricane's sweep; 2 Not all the dread monsters that five thro' creation,

Have caus'd such destruction, such mis'ry and wo,
As from that arch pest of mankind, Dissipation,
Through the civilized world incessantly flow.
3 'Tis a vortex insatiate on whose giddy bosom

The victim is whirl'd till his senses are gone,
Till, lost to all shame and the dictates of reason,
He lends not one effort to ever return.

4 Ah! view on its surface the ruins of genius,

The wreck of a scholar, the christian and friend! The learning, the wit, the graces that charm'd us, In the mind-drowning bowl meet a premature end. 5 Ah! hear, drown'd in tears, the disconsolate mother, Lament the lost state of a favorite son,

Hear the wife and the child, the sister and brother, Mourn a husband, a father, a brother undone.

SECTION XXIII.

The lovers of Rum.

1 I've mus'd on the mis'ries of life,
To find from what quarter they come,
Whence most of confusion and strife,
Alas! from the lovers of Rum.
2 I met with a fair one distress'd;

I ask'd whence her sorrows could come,
She replied, I.am sorely oppress'd,
"My husband's a lover of Rum."
3 I found a poor child in the street,
Whose limbs by the cold were all numb,
No stockings or shoes on his feet,
His father's a lover of Rum.

4 I went to collect, a small debt,

The master was absent from home;
The sequel I need not relate,
The man was a lover of Rum.

5 I met with a pauper in rags,

Who ask'd for a trifling sum:
I'll tell you the cause why he begs,
He once was a lover of Rum.

6 I've seen men, from health, wealth and ease, Untimely descend to the tomb,

I need not describe their disease,
Because they were lovers of Rum.

7 Ask prisons, and gallowses all,

Whence most of, their customers come:
From whence they have most of their calls,
They'll tell you,

"from lovers of Rum."

APPENDIX.

SECTION I.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

In Congress, July 4th, 1776.

THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

1 When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

2 We hold these truths to be self evident:-that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it; and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

3 Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

4 But when a long train of abuses and usurptions, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

5 Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies ; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present king of Great Britain, is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment

of an absolute tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world:

6 He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation, till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

7 He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature: a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only.

8 He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the repository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.

9 He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large, for their exercise, the State remaining, in the mean time, exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

10 He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary rowers.

11 He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers, to harass our people, and eat out their substance He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legisla tures. He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power.

12 He has combined with others to subject us to jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation: For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any morders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world: For imposing taxes on us without our consent;