The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth Has robb'd the neighboring fields of half their growth; Indignant spurns the cottage from the green; For all the luxuries the world supplies: As some fair female, unadorn'd and plain, 288 Slights every borrow'd charm that dress supplies, Nor shares with art the triumph of her eyes But when those charms are pass'd, for charms are frail. When time advances, and when lovers fail She then shines forth, solicitous to bless, In all the glaring impotence of dress. While, scourg'd by famine, from the smiling land If to the city sped—what waits him there? To see profusion that he must not share ; 310 To see ten thousand baneful arts combin'd 316 Here, while the proud their long-drawn pomps display, The dome where pleasure holds her midnight reign, Sure these denote one universal joy! Are these thy serious thoughts?-ah! turn thine eyes Where the poor houseless shivering female lies. 326 She once, perhaps, in village plenty bless'd, And, pinch'd with cold, and shrinking from the shower, When idly first, ambitious of the town, She left her wheel, and robes of country brown. Do thine, sweet AUBURN! thine, the loveliest train, Do thy fair tribes participate her pain? Even now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led, Ah, no! To distant climes, a dreary scene, Far different there from all that charm'd before, The various terrors of that horrid shore; Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray, And fiercely shed intolerable day 348 |