In florid beauty groves and fields appear:
Men seem the only growth that dwindle here.
Contrasted faults through all their manners reign;
Though poor, luxurious; though
Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue;
And even in penance planning sins anew.
All evils here contaminate the mind,
That opulence departed leaves behind;
For wealth was theirs, not far remov'd the date When Commerce proudly flourish'd through the state;
At her command the palace learnt to rise:
Again the long-fall'n column sought the skies; The canvas glow'd, beyond e'en nature warın; The pregnant quarry teem'd with human form: But, more unsteady than the southern gale, Soon commerce turn'd on other shores her sail; While nought remain'd of all that riches gave, But towns unmann'd, and lords without a slave.
Yet, still the loss of wealth is here supplied By arts, the splendid wrecks of former pride; From these the feeble heart and long-fall'n mind An easy compensation seem to find.
Here may be seen, in bloodless pomp array'd,
The pasteboard triumph and the cavalcade :
Processions form'd for piety and love,
A mistress or a saint in every grove.
By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd;
The sports of children satisfy the child:
At sports like these, while foreign arms advance,
In passive ease they leave the world to chance.
When noble aims have suffer'd long controul,
They sink at last, or feebly man the soul;
While low delights succeeding fast behind,
In happier meanness occupy the mind:
As in those domes where Cæsars once bore sway,
Defac'd by time, and tott'ring in decay,
Amidst the ruin, heedless of the dead,
The shelter seeking peasant builds his shed;
And, wondering man could want the larger pile,
Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile.
My soul, turn from them, turn we to survey
Where rougher climes a nobler race display;"
Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansion tread,
And force a churlish soil for scanty bread.
No product here the barren hills afford,
But man and steel, the soldier and his sword.
No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array,
But winter lingering chills the lap of May;
No zephyr fondly soothes the mountain's breast,
But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest.
Yet still, even here, content can spread a charm,
Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm.
Though poor the peasant's hut, his feasts tho' small,
He sees his little lot the lot of all;
Sees no contiguous palace rear its head,
To shade the meanness of his humble shed;
No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal,
To make him loathe his vegetable meal;"
But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil,
Each wish contracting, fits him to the soil.
Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose,
Breathes the keen air, and carols as he goes;
With patient angle trolls the 'finny deep,
Or drives his vent'rous ploughshare to the steep;
Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark the way,
And drags the struggling savage into day.
At night returning, every labour sped,
He sits him down the monarch of a shed;
Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys
His children's rooks, that brighten at the blaze;
While his lov'd partner, boastful of her hoard,
Displays the cleanly platter on the board:
And haply too some pilgrim, thither led,
With many a tale repays the nightly bed.
Thus every good his native wilds impart,
Imprints the patriot passion on his heart;
And e'en those hills that round his mansion rise,
Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies:
Dear is that shed to which his sonl conforms,
And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms;
And as a babe, when scaring sounds molest,
Clings close and closer to the mother's breast,
So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar,
But bind him to his native mountains more.
These are the charms to barren states assign'd;
Their wants are few, their wishes all confin'd:
Yet let them only share the praises due;
If few their wants, their pleasures are but few:
Since every want that stimulates the breast,
Becomes a source of pleasure when redrest.
Hence from such lands each pleasing science flies,
That first excites desire and then supplies;
Unknown to them, when sensual pleasures cley,
To fill the languid pause with finer joy;
Unknown those powers that raise the soul to flame,
Catch every nerve, and vibrate through the frame.
Their level life is but a mouldering fire,
Nor quench'd by want, nor fann'd by strong desire;
Unfit for raptures, or, if raptures cheer
On some high festival of once a year,
In wild excess the vulgar breast takes fire,
Till, buried in debauch, the bliss expire.
But not their joys alone thus coarsely flow;
Their morals, like their pleasures, are but low;
For, as refinement stops, from sire to son
Unalter'd, unimprov'd, their manners run;
And love's and friendship's finely-pointed dart
Fall blunted from each indurated heart.
Some sterner virtues o'er the mountain's breast
May sit, like falcons cowering on the nest;
But all the gentler morals, such as play
Thro' life's more cultur'd walks, and charm our way,
These, far dispers'd, on timorous pinions fly,
To sport and flutter in a kinder sky.
To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign,
1 turn; and France displays her bright domain.
Gay sprightly land of mirth and social ease,
Pleas'd with thyself, whom all the world can please,
How often have I led thy sportive choir,,
With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire!
Where shading elms along the margin grew,
And freshen'd from the wave the zephyr flew :
And haply, though my harsh touch falt'ring still,
But mock'd ali tune, and marr'd the dancer's skill
Yet would the village praise my wondrous power,
And dance, forgetful of the noon-tidc hour.
Alike all ages: dames of ancient days
Have led their children through the mirthful maze;
And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore,
Has frisk'd beneath the burden of-threescore.
So bright a life these thoughtless realms display;
Thus idly busy rolls their world away:
Theirs are those arts that mind to mind endear,
For honour forms the social temper here.
Honour, that praise which real merit-gains,
Or e'en imaginary worth obtains,
Here passes current; paid from hand to hand,..
It shifts, in splendid traffic, round the land;
From courts to camps, to cottages, it strays,
And all are taught an avarice of praise;
They please, are pleased; they give to get esteem,
Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem.
But while this softer art their bliss supplies, It gives their follies also room to rise;
For praise too dearly lov'd, or warmly sought,
Enfeebles all internal strength of thought;
And the weak soul, within itself unblest,
Leans for all pleasure on another's breast.
Hence Ostentation here, with tawdry art,
Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart;
Here Vanity assumes her pert grimace,
And trims her robes of frieze with copper lace;
Here beggar Pride defrauds her daily cheer,
To boast one splendid banquet once a year;
The mind still turns where shifting fashion draws,
Nor weighs the solid worth of self-applause.
To men of other minds my fancy flies,
Embosom'd in the deep where Holland lies.
Methinks her patient sons before me stand,
Where the broad ocean leans against the land,
And, sedulous to stop the coming tide,
Lift the tall rampire's artificial pride.
Onward methinks, and diligently slow,
The firm, connected bulwark seems to go;
Spreads its long arms amidst the watery roar,
Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore:
While the pent Ocean, rising o'er the pile,
Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile;
The slow canal, the yellow-blossom'd vale,
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail,
The crowded mart, the cultivated plain,
A new creation rescu'd from his reign.
Thus, while around the wave-subjected soil
Impels the native to repeated toil,
Industrious habits in each bosom reign,
And industry begets a love of gain.
Hence all the good from opulence that springs,
With all those ills superfluous treasure brings,
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