THE DESERTED VILLAGE.
And while he finks without one arm to fave,
The country blooms-a garden, and a grave.
Where then, ah, where fhall poverty refide,
To scape the preffure of contiguous pride;
If to fome common's fencelefs limits ftrayed,
He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade,
Those fenceless fields the fons of wealth divide,
And even the bare-worn common is denied.
If to the city fped-What waits him there?
To fee profufion that he must not share;
To fee ten thousand baneful arts combined
To pamper luxury, and thin mankind;
To fee each joy the fons of pleasure know,
Extorted from his fellow-creature's woe.
Here, while the courtier glitters in brocade,
There the pale artist plies the fickly trade;
Here, while the proud their long drawn pomps difplay,
There the black gibbet glooms befide the way.
The dome where pleasure holds her midnight reign,
Here richly deckt admits the gorgeous train,
Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing fquare,
The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare;
Sure scenes like thefe no troubles ere annoy!
Sure thefe denote one univerfal joy!
Are these thy ferious thoughts-Ah, turn thine eyes
Where the poor houseless fh:vering female lies.
She once, perhaps, in village plenty bleft,
Has wept at tales of innocence diftreft ;
Her modeft looks the cottage might adorn,
Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn;
Now loft to all; her friends, her virtue fled,
Near her betrayer's door fhe 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, fweet AUBURN, thine, the lovelieft train,
Do thy fair tribes participate her pain?
THE DESERTED VILLAGE.
Even now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led,
At proud men's doors they ask a little bread!
Ah, no. To diftant climes, a dreary fcene,
Where half the convex world intrudes between,
To torrid tracts with fainting fteps 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 funs that dart a downward ray,
And fiercely shed intolerable day;
Those matted woods where birds forget to sing,
But filent bats in drowsy clusters cling,
Those poisonous fields with rank luxuriance crowned
Where the dark scorpion gathers death around;
Where at each step the ftranger fears to wake
The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake;
Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey,
And favage men more murderous still than they;
While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies,
Mingling the ravaged landschape with the skies.
Far different these from every former scene,
The cooling brook, the graffy vefted green,
The breezy covert of the warbling grove,
That only sheltered thefts of harmless love.
Good Heaven! what forrows gloom'd that parting day,
That called them from their native walks away;
When the poor exiles, every pleafure past,
Hung round their bowers, and fondly looked their last,
And took a long farewell, and wished in vain
For feats like these beyond the western main;
And shuddering ftill to face the diftant deep,
Returned and wept, and still returned to weep.
The good old fire, the firft prepared to go
To new found worlds, and wept for others woe.
But for himself, in confcious 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 her father's arms.
THE DESERTED VILLAGE.
With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes,
And bleft the cot where every pleasure rose ;
And kift her thoughtless babes with many a tear,
And claspt them close in sorrow doubly dear ;
Whilft her fond husband ftrove to lend relief
In all the decent manliness of grief.
O luxury! Thou curft by heaven's decree,
How ill exchanged are things like these for thee!
How do thy potions with infidious joy,
Diffuse their pleasures only to deftroy!
Kingdoms by thee, to fickly greatness grown,
Boaft of a florid vigour not their own.
At every draught more large and large they grow,
A bloated mafs of rank unwieldy woe;
Till fapped their strength, and every part unfound,
Down, down they fink, and spread a ruin round.
Even now the devastation is begun,
And half the bufinefs of deftruction done;
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