But times are altered; trade's unfeeling train Usurp the land, and dispossess the swain: Along the lawn, where scattered hamlets rose, Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose; And every want to luxury allied,
Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close
Up yonder hill the village murmur rose; There, as I passed with careless steps and slow, The mingling notes came softened from below; And every pang that folly pays to pride. The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung, Those gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom, The sober herd that lowed to meet their young; Those calm desires that asked but little room, The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool, Those healthful sports that graced the peaceful The playful children just let loose from school; 71 The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind,
Lived in each look, and brightened all the green
These, far departing, seek a kinder shore,
And rural mirth and manners are no more.
Sweet Auburn! parent of the blissful hour,
Thy glades forlorn confess the tyrant's power.
Here, as I take my solitary rounds,
Amidst thy tangling walks and ruined grounds,
And, many a year elapsed, return to view
Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn
grew,
80
Remembrance wakes with all her busy train,
Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain.
In all my wand'rings round this world of
care,
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind;
These all in sweet confusion sought the shade,
And filled 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,
For all the bloomy flush of life is fled.
All but yon widowed, solitary thing,
That feebly bends beside the plashy spring; 130
She, wretched matron-forced in age, for bread,
To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread,
To pick her wintry faggot from the thorn,
In all my griefs-and God has given my To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn—
She only left of all the harmless train,
The sad historian of the pensive plain!
Near yonder copse, where once the garden
smiled,
And still where many a garden flower grows wild;
There, where a few torn shrubs the place dis-
close,
The village preacher's modest mansion rose. 140
A man he was to all the country dear,3
And passing rich with forty pounds a year;
Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change his
place;
Unpractised he to fawn, or seek for power,
By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,
More skilled to raise the wretched than to rise.
His house was known to all the vagrant train,
He chid their wanderings, but relieved their
pain;
The long-remembered beggar was his guest,
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast;
The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud,
Claimed kindred there, and had his claims
And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly!
For him no wretches, born to work and weep,
Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep;
Nor surly porter stands, in guilty state,
To spurn imploring famine from the gate;
But on he moves to meet his latter end,
Angels around befriending virtue's friend;
Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay,
While resignation gently slopes the way; 110
And, all his prospects brightening to the last, 3 A description drawn from the poet's father or
His heaven commences, ere the world be past! | 4 surpassingly
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay,
Sat by his fire, and talked the night away,
Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done,
Shouldered his crutch and showed how fields Full well the busy whisper, circling round, Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned;
Pleased with his guests, the good man learned | Yet he was kind, or if severe in aught,
And quite forgot their vices in their woe; Careless their merits or their faults to scan, His pity gave ere charity began.
Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, And e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side; But in his duty, prompt at every call,
The love he bore to learning was in fault. The village all declared how much he knew; "Twas certain he could write, and cipher too: Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,
And even the story ran that he could gauge.7 In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill,
He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for For e'en though vanquished, he could argue all;
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies,
He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way. 170|
Beside the bed where parting life was laid,
And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismayed,
The reverend champion stood. At his control
Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul;
Comfort came down the trembling wretch to
raise,
And his last faltering accents whispered praise.
At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorned the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway,
And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray.
The service past, around the pious man,
With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran;
E'en children followed, with endearing wile,
And plucked his gown, to share the good man's
smile:
His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed, Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed;
Low lies that house where nut-brown draughts inspired,
Where gray-beard mirth and smiling toil retired,
Where village statesmen talked with looks profound,
And news much older than their ale went round. Imagination fondly stoops to trace
The parlour splendours of that festive place; The white-washed wall, the nicely sanded floor, The varnished clock that clicked behind the door;
The chest contrived a double debt to pay, To them his heart, his love, his griefs were A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day; 230 given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven. As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.
Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the
With blossomed furze unprofitably gay-
There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule,
The village masters taught his little school;
A man severe he was, and stern to view,
I knew him well, and every truant knew;
Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face; 200
Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
5 A striking metaphor, taken from the tourney.
6 Probably Thomas Byrne, Goldsmith's teacher.
was the model for this portrait.
The pictures placed for ornament and use,
The twelve good rules,s the royal game of
Relax his ponderous strength and lean to hear; | Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise;
The host himself no longer shall be found
Careful to see the mantling bliss go round;
Nor the coy maid, half-willing to be pressed,
Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest.
While, scourged by famine, from the smiling
land
Yes! let the rich deride, the proud 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
Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind,
Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined.
But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade,
With all the freaks of wanton wealth arrayed,
In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain, 261
The toiling pleasure sickens into pain;
And, even while fashion's brightest arts decoy,
The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy?
Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen who survey
The rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay,
"Tis yours to judge how wide the limits stand
Between a splendid and a happy land.
Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted
ore,
269
And shouting Folly hails them from her shore;
Hoards even 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 products still the same.
Not so the loss. The man of wealth and pride
Takes up a place 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 robbed the neighbouring fields of half their
growth;
280
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:
The mournful peasant leads his humble band;
And while be 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 strayed
He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade,
Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide,
And e'en the bare-worn common is denied.
If to the city sped-what waits him there?
To see profusion that he must not share;
To see ten thousand baneful arts combined
To pamper luxury and thin mankind;
To see each joy the sons 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 pomps
display,
There, the black gibbet glooms beside the way.
The dome where pleasure holds her midnight
reign,
Here, richly decked, admits the gorgeous train;
Tumultuous grandeur crowds 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 shivering female lies.
She once, perhaps, in village plenty blessed,
Has wept at tales of innocence distressed;
Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, 329
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, pinched with cold, and shrinking from the
shower,
With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour,
While thus the land, adorned for pleasure, all When idly first, ambitious of the town,
In barren splendour feebly waits the fall.
As some fair female, unadorned and plain, Secure to please while youth confirms her reign, Slights every borrowed charm that dress supplies,
Nor shares with art the triumph of her eyes;
But when those charms are past, for charms are
frail,
291
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 betrayed:
In nature's simplest charms at first arrayed,
But verging to decline, its splendours rise,
She left her wheel and robes of country brown.
Do thine, sweet Auburn! thine the loveliest
train,
Do thy fair tribes participate her pain?
E'en now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led, 339
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,
Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they
Where wild Altama10 murmurs to their woe.
10 The Altamaha, a river of Georgia.
Far different there from all that charmed be- At every draught more large and large they fore,
The various terrors of that horrid shore;
grow, A bloated mass of rank unwieldy woe;
Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray, Till, sapped their strength, and every part un
And fiercely shed intolerable day;
Those matted woods where birds forget to sing;
But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling;
Those poisonous fields with rank luxuriance
crowned,
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,
Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round.
Even now the devastation is begun
And half the business of destruction done;
Even now, methinks, as pondering here I stand,
I see the rural virtues leave the land.
Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the
sail
That idly waiting flaps with every gale,
Downward they move, a melancholy band,
And savage men more murderous still than Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand. they;
While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies,
Mingling the ravaged landscape with the skies.
Far different these from every former scene,
The cooling brook, the grassy-vested green, 360
The breezy covert of the warbling grove,
That only sheltered thefts of harmless love.
Good Heaven! what sorrows gloomed that
parting day,
That called them from their native walks away;
When the poor exiles, every pleasure past,
Hung round the bowers, and fondly looked their
last-
And took a long farewell, and wished in vain
For seats like these beyond the western main-
And, shuddering still to face the distant deep,
Returned and wept, and still returned to weep.
The good old sire the first prepared to go 371
To new-found worlds, and wept for others'
woe;
But for himself, in conscious virtue brave,
He only wished 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 a father's arms.
With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes,
And blessed the cot where every pleasure rose,
And kissed her thoughtless babes with many a
tear,
381 And clasped them close, in sorrow doubly dear; Whilst her fond husband strove to lend relief In all the silent manliness of grief.
O luxury! thou curst by Heaven's decree, How ill exchanged are things like these for thee!
How do thy potions, with insidious joy,
Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy!
Kingdoms, by thee to sickly greatness grown.
Boast of a florid vigour not their own:
11 Here Goldsmith's imagination played him false. unless tigers may stand for panthers.
Contented toil, and hospitable care,
And kind connubial tenderness are there,
And piety with wishes placed above,
And steady loyalty, and faithful love.
And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid,
Still first to fly where sensual joys invade;
Unfit, in these degenerate times of shame,
To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame:
Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried,
My shame in crowds, my solitary pride;
Thou found 'st me poor at first, and keep'st me
Thou found 'st me poor at first, and keep'st me
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Thou guide, by which the nobler arts excel,
Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well!
Farewell; and oh! where'er thy voice be tried,
On Torno 's12 cliffs, or Pambamarca 's13 side,
Whether where equinoctial fervours glow,
Or winter wraps the polar world in snow, 420
Still let thy voice, prevailing over time,
Redress the rigours of the inclement clime;
Aid slighted truth with thy persuasive strain;
Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain;
Teach him, that states of native strength pos-
sessed,
Though very poor, may still be very blest;
That trade's proud empire hastes to swift
decay,
As ocean sweeps the laboured mole away;
While self-dependent power can time defy,
As rocks resist the billows and the sky.
The haunch was a picture for painters to An under-bred, fine-spoken fellow was he,
This tale of the bacon a damnable bounce?1
Well, suppose it a bounce; sure a poet may try,
By a bounce now and then, to get courage to
fly.
But, my Lord, it's no bounce: I protest in my
turn
And he smiled as he looked at the venison and me.
"What have we got here?-Why this is good eating!
Your own, I suppose-or is it in waiting?" 40 "Why, whose should it be?" cried I with a flounce;
"I get these things often'-but that was a bounce:
“Some lords, my acquaintance, that settle the nation,
Are pleased to be kind-but I hate ostentation."
"If that be the case, then," cried he, very gay,
"I'm glad I have taken this house in my way.
To-morrow you take a poor dinner with me;
No words-I insist on 't-precisely at three;
We'll have Johnson, and Burke; all the wits
will be there;
My acquaintance is slight, or I'd ask my Lord
Clare.
51 And now that I think on 't, as I am a sinner! It's a truth-and your Lordship may ask Mr. We wanted this venison to make out the dinner. Byrne.2 What say you-a pasty? It shall, and it must,
To go on with my tale: as I gazed on the And my wife, little Kitty, is famous for crust.
haunch,
Here, porter! this venison with me to Mile-
end;5
I thought of a friend that was trusty and
staunch;
21
So I cut it, and sent it to Reynolds3 undrest,
To paint it or eat it, just as he liked best.
Of the neck and the breast I had next to dis-
pose;
'Twas a neck and a breast that might rival
Monroe's: 4
But in parting with these I was puzzled again, With the how, and the who, and the where, and the when.
No stirring-I beg-my dear friend-my dear friend!"'
Thus, snatching his hat, he brushed off like the wind,
And the porter and eatables followed behind. Left alone to reflect, having emptied my shelf,
And nobody with me at sea but myself,'' 60 Though I could not help thinking my gentleman hasty,
There's Howard, and Coley, and H-rth, and Yet Johnson, and Burke, and a good venison Hiff,
I think they love venison,-I know they love Were things that I never disliked in my life, beef. Though clogged with a coxcomb, and Kitty his wife.
There's my countryman Higgins-oh! let him alone,
|