In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain,
The toiling pleasure fickens into pain;
And, even while fashion's brightest arts decoy,
The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy.

Ye friends to truth, ye ftatesmen, who furvey The rich man's joys encrease, the poor's decay, 'Tis your's to judge, how wide the limits ftand Between a splendid and an happy land. Proud fwells the tide with loads of freighted ore, And shouting Folly hails them from her shore; Hoards, even beyond the mifers' wifh abound, And rich men flock from all the world around. Yet count our gains. This wealth is but a name That leaves our useful products ftill the fame. Not fo the lofs. The man of wealth and pride, Takes up a space that many poor supplied; Space for his lake; his park's extended bounds; Space for his horfes, equipage, and hounds; The robe that wraps his limbs in filken floth, Has robbed the neighbouring fields of half their growth;

His feat, where folitary sports are seen,
Indignant fpurns the cottage from the green;
Around the world each needful product flies,
For all the luxuries the world fupplies.
While thus the land adorned for pleasure, all
In barren splendour feebly waits the fall.

As fome fair female unadorned and plain, Secure to please while youth confirms her reign, Slights every borrowed charm that dress supplies, Nor fhares with art the triumph of her eyes. But when those charms are paft, for charms are frail, When time advances, and when lovers fail, She then shines forth, follicitous to blefs, In all the glaring impotence of dress. Thus fares the land, by luxury betrayed; In Nature's fimpleft charms at first arrayed; But verging to decline, its fplendours rise, Its vistas strike, its palaces furprize;

While fcourged by famine from the fmiling 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, fhall Poverty refide,
To 'fcape the preffure of contiguous pride?
If to fome common's fencelefs limits ftrayed,
He drives his flock to pick the fcanty blade,
Those fencelefs fields the fons of wealth divide,
And even the bare-worn common is denied.

If to the city fped---What waits him there?
To fee profufion that he must not share;
To fee ten thousand baneful arts combined
To pamper luxury, and thin mankind;
To fee thofe joys the fons of pleasure know,
Extorted from his fellow-creature's woe.
Here while the courtier glitters in brocade,
There the pale artist plies the fickly trade;

Here, while the proud their long-drawn pomps difplay, There the black gibbet glooms befide the way.

The dome where Pleasure holds her midnight reign,
Here, richly deckt, admits the gorgeous train;
Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square,
The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare.
Sure scenes 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 shivering 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 the lays her head,

And pinch'd with cold, and fhrinking from the fhower,
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 fcene,
Where half the convex world intrudes between,
Through torrid tracts with fainting fteps they go,
Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe.

Far different there from all that charm'd before,
The various terrors of that horrid fhore;
Those blazing funs that dart a downward ray,
And fiercely fhed intolerable day;

Those matted woods where birds forget to fing,
But filent bats in drowsy clusters cling,

Those poisonous fields with rank luxuriance crowned,
Where the dark scorpion gathers death around;
Where at each step the ftranger fears to wake
The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake;
Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey,
And favage men, more murderous ftill than they ;
While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies,

Mingling the ravaged landfchape with the skies.