But verging to decline, its splendors 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 divide,
And even 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,
Ther 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 deck'd, 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 bless'd,
Has wept at tales of innocence distress'd-
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 shower,
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?
E'en now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led,
At proud men's doors they ask a little bread,
Ah, no! To distant climes, a dreary scere,
Where half the convex world intrudes between,
Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go,
Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe.
Far different there from all that charm'd before,
The various terrors of that horrid shore;
Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray,
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 crown'd,
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,
And savage men more murderous still than 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,
The breezy covert of the warbling grove,
That only shelter'd thefts of harmless love.
Good Heaven! what sorrows gloom'd that parting day, That call'd them from their native walks away;
When the poor exiles, every pleasure pass'd,
Hung round their bowers, and fondly look'd their last-
And took a long farewell, and wish'd in vain
For seats like these beyond the western maiu-
And shuddering still to face the distant deep,
Return'd and wept, and still return'd to weep.
The good old sire, the first, prepared to go
To new-found words, and wept for others' woe-
But for himself, in conscious virtue brave,
He only wish'd 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 bless'd the cot where every pleasure rose,
And kiss'd her thoughtless babes with many a tear,
And clasp'd them close, in sorrow doubly dear—
Whilst her fond husband strove to lend relief
In all the silent manliness of grief.
O luxury! thou curs'd by Heaven's decree,
How ill exchang'd 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 vigor not their own;
At every draught more large and large they grow,
A bloated mass of rank, unwieldy woe-
Till sapp'd their strength, and every part unsound,
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—
Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand;
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 source of all my bliss, and all my woe,
That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so→
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 Tornea's cliffs, or Pambamarca's side,
Whether where equinoctial fervors glow,
Or winter wraps the polar world in snow,
Still let thy voice, prevailing over time,
Redress the rigors 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 possess'd,
Though very poor, may still be very bless'd;
That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay,
As ocean sweeps the labor'd mole away-
While self-dependent power can time defy,
As rocks resists the billows and the sky.
A PROSPECT OF SOCIETY.
REMOTE, unfriended, melancholy, slow,
Or by the lazy Scheldt or wandering Po,
Or onward, where the rude Carinthian boor
Against the houseless stranger shuts the door,
Or where Campania's plain forsaken lies
A weary waste expanding to the skies-
Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see,
My heart untravel'd, fondly turns to thee;
Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain,
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.
Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend,
And round his dwelling guardian saints attend:
Blest be that spot, where cheerful guests retire
To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire:
Bless'd that abode, where want and pain repair,
And every stranger finds a ready chair;
Bless'd be those feasts with simple plenty crown'd,
Where all the ruddy family around
Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail,
Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale,
Or press the bashful stranger to his food.
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