THE TRAVELLER. 



845 



By sports like these are all their cares beguiled, 

 The sports of children satisfy the child ; 

 Eacli nobler aim, repressed 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 Caesars once bore sway, 

 Defaced by time, and tottering in decay, 

 There in the ruin, heedless of the dead, 

 The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed ; 

 And, wondering 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 mansion 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, lingering 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, 

 Breaths the keen air, and carols as he goes : 

 With patent angle trolls the finny deep, 

 Or drives his venturous plough-share to the steep ; 

 Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark the way, 

 And drags the struggling savage into day. 

 At night returning, every 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 loved 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 assigned, 

 Their wants but few, their wishes all confined. 

 Yet let them only share the praises due ; 

 If few their wants, their pleasures are but few ; 

 For every want that stimulates the breast, 

 Becomes a source of pleasure when redressed. 

 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 powers that raise the soul to flame, 

 Catch every nerve, and vibrate through the frame. 

 Their level life is but a mouldering fire, 

 Unquenched by want, unfanned by strong desire ; 

 Unfit fur 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, 

 Unaltered, unimproved, 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 cowering on the nest ; 

 But all the gentler morals, such as play 

 Through life's more cultured walks and charm the way, 

 These far dispersed, on timorous pinions fly. 

 To sport and flutter in a kinder sky. 



To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign, 

 I turn and France displays her bright domain. 

 Gay sprightly land of mirth and social ease, 

 Pleased with thyself, whom all the world can please, 

 How often have I led thy sportive choir, 

 With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire ! 



6 A* 



