But verging to decline, its fplendors rise,
Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise ;
While, scourg'd by famine from the smiling land,
The mournful peasant leads his humble band ;
And while he finks, without one arm to save,
The country blooms—a garden and a grave.

Where then, ah! where shall poverty reside,
To 'scape the pressure of contiguous pride ?
If to some common's fenceless limits stray'd,
He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade,
Those fenceless fields the fons of wealth divide,
And even the bare-worn common is deny’d.

If to the city sped—What waits him there? To fee profusion that he must not share ; To see ten thousand baneful arts combin'd To pamper luxury, and thin mankind; To see each joy the sons of pleasure know, Extorted from his fellow-creature's woe. Here, while the courtier glitters in brocade, There the pale artist plies the fickly trade ; Here, while the proud their long-drawn pomps display, There the black gibbet glooms beside the

way. The dome where Pleasure holds her midnight reign, Here, richly deckt, admits the gorgeous train ; Tumultuous grandeur crouds the blazing square, The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare. Sure scenes like these no troubles ere annoy! Sure these denote one universal joy !

Are

1

Are these thy serious thoughts—Ah, turn thine eyes Where the

poor

houseless Thiv'ring female lies. She once, perhaps, in village plenty blest, Has wept at tales of innocence distrest; Her modeft looks the cottage might adorn, Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn, Now lost to all; her friends, her virtue fied, Near her betrayer's door she lays her head, And, pinch'd with cold, and shrinking from the shower, With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour, 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, At proud men's doors they ask a little bread!

Ah, no. To distant climes, a dreary scene, Where half the convex world intrudès between, Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go, Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe. 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; Those matted woods where birds forget to sing, But filent bats in drowsy clusters cling; Those pois'nous fields with rank luxuriance crown'd, Where the dark scorpion gathers death around;

Where

a

Where at each step the stranger fears to wake
The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake;
Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey,
And savage inen more murd’rous still than they ;
While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies,
Mingling the ravag'd landscape with the skies.
Far different these from every former scene,
The cooling brook, the grassy vested green,
The breezy covert of the warbling grove,
That only shelter'd thefts of harmless love.

Good Heaven! what sorrows gloom'd that parting day, That call'd them from their native walks away; When the poor exiles, every pleasure past, Hung round the bowers, and fondly look'd their last, And took a long farewell, and wish'd in vain For seats like these beyond the western main And shudd'ring still to face the distant deep, Return’d and wept, and still return'd to weep. The good old fire, the first prepard to go To new-found worlds, and wept for others' woe; But for himself, in conscious virtue brave, He only wish'd for worlds beyond the grave, His lovely daughter, lovelier in her tears, The fond companion of his helpless years, Silent went next, neglectful of her charms, And left a lover's for her father's arms, With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes, And bleft the cot where every pleasure rose ;

And

And kist her thoughtless babes with many a tear,
And claspt them close, in forrow doubly dear ;
Whilst her fond husband ftrove to lend relief
In all the filent manliness of grief.

O luxury! thou curst by heaven's decree,
How ill exchangod are things like these for thee !
How do thy potions with insidious joy,
Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy !
Kingdoms by thee, to sickly greatness grown,
Boast of a florid vigour not their own.
At every draught more large and large they grow,
A bloated mass of rank unwieldy woe;
Till sapp'd their strength, and every part unsound,
Down, down they fink, and spread a ruin round.

Even now the devastation is begun,
And half the business of destruction done ;
Even now, methinks, as pond'ring here I sland,
I see the rural virtues leave the land.
Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the fail
That idly waiting flaps with every gale,
Downward they move, a melancholy band,
Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand.
Contented toil, and hospitable care,
And kind connubial tenderness, are there;
And piety with wishes plac'd above,
And steady loyalty, and faithful love.
And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid,
Still first to fly where sensual joys invade;

Unfit in these degenerate times of shame,
To catch the heart, or strike fot honest fame;
Dear charming nymph, neglected and decry’d,
My shame in crouds, my folitary pride.
Thou source of all my bliss, and all my woe,
That found’st me poor at first, and keep'st me so;
Thou guide, by which the nobler arts excel,
Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well,
Farewel, and O! where'er thy voice be try'd,
On Torno's cliffs, or Pambamarca's fide,
Whether where equinoctial fervours glow,
Or winter wraps the polar world in snow,
Still let thy voice, prevailing over time,
Redress the rigours of th’ inclement clime;
Aid Nlighted truth with thy persuasive strain ;
Teach erring man to fpurn the rage of gain ;
Teach him, that states of native strength poffeft,
Though very poor, may still be very blest;
That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay,
As ocean sweeps the labour'd mole away;
While self-dependent power can time defy,
As rocks resist the billows and the sky.

THE