THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 



853 



No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear, 

 Relax his ponderous strength, and lean to hear ; 

 The host himself no longer shall be found 

 Careful to sec the mantling'bliss go round ; 

 Nor the coy maid, half willing to be pre.st, 

 Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest. 



Yes! lut the rich deride, the proud disdain, 

 These simple blessings of the lowly train, 

 To me more dear, congenial to my heart, 

 One native charm, than all the gloss of art ; 

 Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play, 

 The soul adopts, and owns their first-born sway : 

 Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind, 

 Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined. 

 But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade, 

 With all their freaks of wanton wealth arrayed, 

 In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain, 

 The toiling pleasure sickens into pain ; 

 And, even while fashion's brightest arts decoy, 

 The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy ? 



Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen, who survey 

 The rich man's joys, increase, the poor's decay, 

 'Tis yours to judge, how wide the limits stand 

 Between a splendid and a happy land. 

 Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore, 

 And shouting Folly hails them from her shore ; 

 Hoards, even beyond the miser's wish, abound, 

 And rich men flock from all the world around. 

 Yet count our gains. This wealth is but a name 

 That leaves our useful product still the same. 

 Not so the loss. The man of wealth and pride 

 Takes up a space that many poor supplied ; 

 Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds, 

 Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds ; 

 The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth, 

 Has robbed the neighbouring fields of half their growth; 

 His seat, where solitary sports are seen, 

 Indignant spurns the cottage from the green : 

 Around the world each needful product flies, 

 For all the luxuries the world supplies. 

 While thus the land adorned for pleasure, all 

 In barren splendour feebly waits the fall. 



As some fair female unadorned and plain, 

 Secure to please while youth confirms her reign, 

 Slights every borrowed charm that dress supplies, 

 Nor shares with art the triumph of her eyes ; 



But when those charms are past, (for charms are frail,) 



When time advances, and when lovers fail, 



iilie then >liines ford), solicitous to bless, 



In all the glaring impotence of dress. 



Tims fares the land by luxury betrayed, 



In nature's simplest charms at first arrayed, 



But verging to decline, its splendours rise, 



Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise ; 



While scourged by famine from the smiling land, 



The mournful peasant leads his humble band; 



And while he sinks, 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 strayed, 

 He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade, 

 Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide, 

 And even the bare-worn common is denied. 



If to the city sped what waits him there? 

 To see profusion that he must not share; 

 To see ten thousand baneful arts combined 

 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 sickly 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 decked, admits the gorgeous train; 

 Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square, 

 The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare. 

 Sure scenes like these no troubles e'er annoy ! 

 Sure these denote one universal joy ! 

 Are these thy serious thoughts ? Ah, turn thine eyes 

 Where the poor houseless shivering female lies. 

 She once, perhaps, in village plenty blest, 

 Has wept at tales of innocence distrest ; 

 Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, 

 Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn ; 

 Now lost to all ; her friends, her virtue fled, 

 Near her betrayer's door she lays her head ; 

 And, pinched with cold, and shrinking from the shower a 

 With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour, 

 When idly first, ambitious of the town, 

 She left her wheel, and robes of country brown. 



6B 



