In florid beauty groves and fields appear,

Man seems the only growth that dwindles here. Contrasted faults through all his manners reign; Though poor, luxurious; though submissive, vain; Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue; And ev❜n in pennance planning sins anew.

All evils here contaminate the mind,

That opulence departed leaves behind;

For wealth was theirs, not far remov'd the date, When commerce proudly flourish'd through the state;

At her command the palace learnt to rise,

Again the long-fall'n column sought the skies;
The canvass glow'd, beyond e'en Nature warm,
The pregnant quarry teem'd with human form:
Till, more unsteady than the southern gale,
Commerce on other shores display'd her sail;
While nought remain'd of all that riches gave,
But towns unmann'd and lords without a slave:
And late the nation found, with fruitless skill,
Its former strength was but plethoric ill.
Yet, still the loss of wealth is here supply'd
By arts, the splendid wrecks of former pride;

From these the feeble heart and long-fall'n mind

An easy compensation seem to find.

Here may be seen, in bloodless pomp array'd,
The pasteboard triumph and the cavalcade:
Processions form'd for piety and love,

A mistress or a saint in ev'ry grove.

By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd,
The sports of children satisfy the child:
Each nobler aim, represt by long control,

Now sinks at last, or feebly mans the soul:
While low delights, succeeding fast behind,
In happier meanness occupy the mind:

As in those domes, where Cæsars once bore sway,
Defac'd by time, and tott'ring in decay,

There in the ruin, heedless of the dead,

The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed;
And, wond'ring man could want the larger pile,
Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile.

My soul turn from them, turn we to survey

Where rougher climes a nobler race display, Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansions tread,

And force a churlish soil for scanty bread;

No product here the barren hills afford

But man and steel, the soldier and his sword:
No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array,
But winter ling'ring chills the lap of May;
No zephyr fondly sues the mountain's breast,
But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest.

Yet still, e'en here, content can spread a charm, Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm.

Though poor the peasant's hut, his feasts though small, He sees his little lot the lot of all;

Sees no contiguous palace rear its head,

To shame the meanness of his humble shed;
No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal,
To make him loath his vegetable meal;
But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil,
Each wish contracting, fits him to the soil.
Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose,
Breathes the keen air, and carols as he goes;
With patient angle trolls the finny deep,

Or drives his vent'rous ploughshare to the steep;
Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark the way,
And drags the struggling savage into day.

At night returning, ev'ry labour sped,

He sits him down the monarch of a shed;
Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys
His children's looks, that brighten at the blaze;
While his lov'd partner, boastful of her hoard,
Displays her cleanly platter on the board:
And haply too some pilgrim, thither led,

With many a tale repays the nightly bed.

Thus every good his native wilds impart Imprints the patriot passion on his heart; And e'en those hills, that round his mansion rise, Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies: Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms, And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms; And as a child, when scaring sounds molest, Clings close and closer to the mother's breast, So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar, But bind him to his native mountains more.

Such are the charms to barren states assign'd; Their wants but few, their wishes all confin'd: Yet let them only share the praises due,

If few their wants, their pleasures are but few;

For ev'ry want that stimulates the breast

Becomes a source of pleasure when redrest:

Whence from such lands each pleasing science flies,
That first excites desire and then supplies;
Unknown to them, when sensual pleasures cloy,
To fill the languid pause with finer joy;

Unknown those pow'rs that raise the soul to flame,
Catch ev'ry nerve, and vibrate through the frame.
Their level life is but a mould'ring fire,
Unquench'd by want, unfann'd by strong desire;
Unfit for raptures, or, if raptures cheer

On some high festival of once a year,

In wild excess the vulgar breast takes fire,
Till, buried in debauch, the bliss expire.

But not their joys alone thus coarsely flow;
Their morals, like their pleasures, are but low;
For, as refinement stops, from sire to son
Unalter'd, unimprov'd, the manners run;

And love's and friendship's finely pointed dart
Fall blunted from each indurated heart.

Some sterner virtues o'er the mountain's breast

May sit, like falcons cow'ring on the nest: