Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square, Sure these denote one universal joy! Are these thy serious thoughts? Ah! turn thine eyes She once, perhaps, in village plenty blest, She left her wheel, and robes of country brown. Do thine, sweet AUBURN, thine, the loveliest train, E'en now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led, Ah, no. To distant climes, a dreary scene, ["These poor shivering females have once seen happier days, and been flattered into beauty. They have been prostituted to the gay luxurious villain, and are now turned out to meet the severity of winter. Perhaps, now lying at the doors of their betrayers, they sue to wretches whose hearts are insensible, or debauchees who may curse, but will not relieve them."-Citizen of the World, No. cxviii. See vol. ii. p. 464.] † [A river of Georgia, North America; introduced here probably from Far different there from all that charm'd before, Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray, Those matted woods where birds forget to sing, But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling; Those poisonous fields with rank luxuriance crown'd, being mentioned in conversation by General Oglethorpe, the founder of that state, with whom Goldsmith was intimate ] * ["The poet," says Dr. Percival," is not on all occasions to be confined within the precise boundaries of truth. What writer of lively fancy, in describing a morning walk on the banks of Keswick, would not embellish the beauty of the scene by the melody of birds, and thus add the charms of music to all the enchantments of vision? Yet, I believe, there is not a feathered songster to be found in those delightful vales: probably owing to the terrors inspired by the birds of prey which abound on the mountains that surround them. The same observation will perhaps justify the author of the 'Deserted Village, when he attempts to magnify the terrors of an American wilderness by introducing a tiger into the tremendous group, though this animal has never yet been found in the British trans-Atlantic settlements."-Works, vol. ii. p. 170, edit. 1806. "I believe I have taken a poetical license to transplant the jackal from Asia. In Greece I never saw nor heard these animals; but among the ruins of Ephesus I have heard them by hundreds. They haunt ruins and follow armies."-LORD BYRON, Siege of Corinth, note.] Good Heaven! what sorrows gloom'd that parting day, That called them from their native walks away; When the poor exiles, every pleasure past, Hung round the bowers, and fondly look'd their last, In all the silent manliness of grief.* O luxury! thou curst by Heaven's decree, Kingdoms by thee, to sickly greatness grown, Boast of a florid vigor not their own: At every draught more large and large they grow, ["In all the decent manliness of grief."-First edit.] Till sapp'd their strength, and every part unsound, Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round. E'en now the devastation is begun, Down where you anchoring vessel spreads the sail, Downward they move, a melancholy band, Pass from the shore and darken all the strand. And kind connubial tenderness, are there; And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid, Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain; As rocks resist the billows and the sky.* ["Dr. Johnson favored me by marking the lines which he furnished to Goldsmith's Deserted Village,' which are only the four last."-BOSWELL, vol. ii. p. 309, edit. 1835.] |