Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,
And Niagara stuns with thundering sound?

E'en now, perhaps, as there some pilgrim strays Through tangled forests, and through dangerous ways, Where beasts, with man, divided empire claim,

And the brown Indian marks with murderous aim;
There, while above the giddy tempest flies,
And all around distressful yells arise,

The pensive exile, bending with his woe,
To stop too fearful, and too faint to go,

Casts a long look where England's glories shine,
And bids his bosom sympathize with mine.
Vain, very vain, my weary search, to find
That bliss which only centers in the mind:
Why have I stray'd from pleasure and repose,
To seek a good each government bestows?
In every government, though terrours reign,
Though tyrant kings, or tyrant laws restrain,
How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part, which laws or kings can cause or cure.

Still, to ourselves, in every place consign'd,
Our own felicity we make, or find:

With secret course, which no loud storms annoy,
Glides the smooth current of domestick joy.
The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel,

Luke's iron crown, and Damien's bed of steel,
To men remote from power, but rarely known,
Leave reason, faith, and conscience, all our own.

THE

DESERTED VILLAGE.

BY

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

PRINTED IN

1769.