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Not this the worst. As nature's ties decay, As duty, love, and honour, fail to sway, Fictitious bonds, the bonds of wealth and law, Still gather strength, and force unwilling awe. Hence all obedience bows to thee alone,

And talent sinks, and Merit weeps unknown;
Till time may come, when, stripp'd of all her charms,
The land of scholars, and the nurse of arms,
Where noble stems transmit the patriot flame,
Where kings have toil'd, and poets wrote, for fame,
One sink of level avarice shall lie,

And scholars, soldiers, kings, unhonour'd die.

Yet think not, thus when Freedom's ills I state, I mean to flatter kings, or court the great: Ye powers of truth, that bid my soul aspire, Far from my bosom drive the low desire! And thou, fair Freedom, taught alike to feel The rabble's rage, and tyrant's angry steel; Thou transitory flow'r, alike undone

By proud contempt, or favour's fostering sun; Still may thy blooms the changeful clime endure! I only would repress them to secure;

For just experience tells, in every soil,

That those who think must govern those that toil;
And all that Freedom's highest aims can reach
Is but to lay proportion'd loads on each.
Hence should one order disproportion'd grow,
Its double weight must ruin all below.

Oh then how blind to all that truth requires,
Who think it freedom when a part aspires!
Calm is my soul, nor apt to rise in arms,
Except when fast approaching danger warns :
But when contending chiefs blockade the throne,
Contracting regal pow'r to stretch their own;
8

VOL. VI.

When I behold a factious band agree

To call it freedom when themselves are free;
Each wanton judge new penal statutes draw,
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law;
The wealth of climes, where savage nations roam,
Pillag'd from slaves to purchase slaves at home;
Fear, pity, justice, indignation start,

Tear off reserve, and bear my swelling heart;
Till half a patriot, half a coward grown,
I fly from petty tyrants to the throne.

Yes, brother, curse with me that baleful hour,
When first ambition struck at regal pow'r;
And thus polluting honour in its source,

Gave wealth to sway the mind with double force.
Have we not seen round Britain's peopled shore,
Her useful sons exchang'd for useless ore?
Seen all her triumphs but destruction haste,
Like flaring tapers brightening as they waste;
Seen opulence, her grandeur to maintain,
Lead stern depopulation in her train,

And over fields where scatter'd hamlets rose,
In barren solitary pomp repose?

Have we not seen, at pleasure's lordly call,
The smiling long-frequented village fall?
Beheld the duteous son, the sire decay'd,
The modest matron, and the blushing maid,
Forc'd from their homes, a melancholy train,
To traverse climes beyond the western main;
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 dang'rous 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 wo,
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 centres in the mind.
Why have I stray'd from pleasure and repose,
To seek a good each government bestows?
In every government, though terrors 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 domestic joy.
The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel,

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

* In the Respublica Hungarica, there is an account of a desperate rebellion in the year 1514, headed by two brothers, George and Luke Zeck. When it was quelled, George, not Luke, was punished by his head being encircled with a red-hot iron crown. Mr. Boswell pointed out Golde smith's mistake.

THE DESERTED VILLAGE.

SWEET Auburn! loveliest village of the plain, Where health and plenty cheer'd the labouring swain,

Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting summer's lingering blooms delay'd:
Dear lovely bow'rs of innocence and ease,
Seats of my youth, when every sport could please:
How often have I loiter'd o'er thy green,
Where humble happiness endear'd each scene!
How often have I paus'd on every charm,
The shelter'd cot, the cultivated farm,
The never-failing brook, the busy mill,

The decent church that topp'd the neighbouring hill,
The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age and whispering lovers made!
How often have I bless'd 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 survey'd ;
And many a gambol frolick'd o'er the ground,
And sleights of art and feats of strength went round.
And still, as each repeated pleasure tir'd,
Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspir'd;
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 re-
prove:

These were thy charms, sweet village! sports like these,

With sweet succession, taught e'en toil to please; These round thy bow'rs 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 bow'rs thy tyrant's hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green:
One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage tints thy smiling plain;
No more thy glassy brook reflects the day,
But chok'd 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 bow'rs 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, or a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroy'd, can never be supplied.

A time there was, ere England's griefs began, When every rood of ground maintain'd its man; For him light labour spread her wholesome store, Just gave what life requir'd, but gave no more : His best companions, innocence and health; And his best riches, ignorance of wealth. 8*

VOL. VI.

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