How blest is he who crowns in shades like these,
A youth of labor with an age of ease;

Who quits a world where strong temptations try,
And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly!
For him no wretches, born to work and weep,
Explore the mine, or tempt the dang'rous deep;
No 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 unperceiv'd decay,
While resignation gently slopes the way; *
And, all his prospects bright'ning to the last,
His heaven commences ere the world be past.

Sweet was the sound, when oft, at ev'ning's close,

Up yonder hill the village murmur rose;

There, as I pass'd with careless steps and slow,
The mingling notes came soften'd from below;
The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung,
The sober herd that low'd to meet their young;
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool,

The playful children just let loose from school;

The watch-dog's voice that bay'd the whisp'ring wind;
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind;
These all in sweet confusion sought the shade,

And fill'd 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 foot-way tread,

But all the bloomy flush of life is fled.

* The famous painting "Resignation," which Sir Joshua Reynolds dedicated to Goldsmith, was suggested by this passage.

All but yon widow'd, solitary thing,

That feebly bends beside the plashy spring;

She, wretched matron, forc'd in age, for bread,
To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread,

To pick her wintry fagot from the thorn,

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 smil'd,
And still where many a garden-flower grows wild;
There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,
The village preacher's modest mansion rose.

* This powerful picture of contrasted conditions brings vividly to the reader's mind the village once teeming with good cheer and happiness, and the painful afterdesolation. The allusion to the "widow'd, solitary thing" is believed to be made of a poor widow by the name of Catherine Geraghty, who remained at Lissoy,

A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year;
Remote from towns he ran his godly race,

Nor e'er had chang'd, nor wish'd to change his place;
Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for power,

By doctrines fashion'd to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learn'd to prize,
More bent to raise the wretched than to rise.
His house was known to all the vagrant train,
He chid their wand'rings, but reliev'd their pain;
The long remembered beggar was his guest,

Whose beard descending swept his aged breast.
The ruin'd spendthrift, now no longer proud,
Claim'd kindred there, and had his claims allow'd;
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay,

Sate by his fire, and talk'd the night away;

Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done,

Shoulder'd his crutch, and show'd how fields were won.
Pleas'd with his guests, the good man learn'd to glow;

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 lean'd to Virtue's side:
But in his duty prompt at every call,

He watch'd and wept, he pray'd and felt for all;
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries,
To tempt its new-fledg'd offspring to the skies,
He tried each art, reprov'd each dull delay,

Allur'd to brighter worlds, and led the way.

*The poet's father, Charles Goldsmith, who was a country curate, doubtless was the original from which was drawn this delightful portrait.

Beside the bed where parting life was laid, And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismay'd, The rev'rend champion stood. At his control Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul; Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise, And his last falt'ring accents whisper'd praise.

At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorn'd the venerable place;

Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway,
And fools, who came to scoff, remain'd to pray.

The service past, around the pious man,

With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran;

E'en children follow'd with endearing wile,

And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile.

His ready smile a parent's warmth express'd,
Their welfare pleas'd him, and their cares distress'd;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were 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 way,
With blossom'd furze unprofitably gay,
There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule,
The village master 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 learn'd to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laugh'd with counterfeited glee
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
Full well the busy whisper circling round,
Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd;
Yet he was kind, or if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault;
The village all declar'd how much he knew;
'Twas certain he could write, and cypher too;
Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,
And e'en the story ran that he could guage;

*There is scarcely anything to be met with in all the range of English poetry which equals the simple grandeur and beauty of the simile introduced in these four lines. It has been remarked that a similar comparison occurs in the verse of the Latin poet Claudian, and might have suggested the thought of Goldsmith.

+ Goldsmith's first male teacher was Quarter-Master Byrne, to whom the graceful and humorous pen-portrait was said to bear a striking likeness.