WEET Auburn! loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain,
Where smiling Spring its earliest visit paid,

And parting Summer's lingering blooms delayed.

Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,

Seats of my youth, when every sport could please,
How often have I loitered o'er thy green,
Where humble happiness endeared each scene!
How often have I paused on every charm,-
The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm,

The never-failing brook, the busy mill,

The decent church that topt the neighb'ring hill, The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade, For talking age and whispering lovers made!

THE DESERTED VILLAGE.

How often have I blest the coming day,
When toil remitting lent its turn to play,
And all the village train, from labour free,
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree,
While many a pastime circled in the shade,
The young contending as the old surveyed;

And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground,

And sleights of art and feats of strength went round.
And still as each repeated pleasure tired,

Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired:
The dancing pair that simply sought renown,

By holding out, to tire each other down;
The swain mistrustless of his smutted face,

While secret laughter tittered round the place;

The bashful virgin's side-long looks of love,

The matron's glance that would those looks reprove:

THE DESERTED VILLAGE.

These were thy charms, sweet village! sports like these,
With sweet succession, taught ev'n toil to please;
These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed,
These were thy charms-but all these charms are fled.
Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,

Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn ;
Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green:
One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain;
No more thy glassy brook reflects the day,
But, choked with sedges, works its weedy way;
Along thy glades, a solitary guest,

The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest;
Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies,
And tires their echoes with unvaried cries.
Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all,
And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall
And, trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand,
Far, far away thy children leave the land.

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay;
Princes and lords may flourish or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.

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 disclose, The village preacher's modest mansion rose.

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 changed, nor wished to change, his place:
Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for power

By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,
More bent 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 agèd breast;
The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud,

Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed;
The broken soldier, kindly bid 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 were won.
Pleased with his guests, the good man learned 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 leaned to virtue's side;
But in his duty prompt at every call,

He watched and wept, he prayed and felt, for 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.

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:
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.