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 wo. Here, while the courtier glitters in brocade, There the pale artist plies the sickly trade; Here, while the proud their long-drawn pomps disThere the black gibbet glooms beside the way : [play, The dome were 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;

[er,

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 show-
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 intrudes between,
Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go,
Where wild Altama murmurs to their wo.

Far different there from all that charmed 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 silent bats in drowsy clusters cling:

Those poisonous fields with rank luxuriance crowned,
Where the dark scorpion gathers death around:
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 men more murderous still than they;
While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies,

Mingling the ravaged 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 sheltered thefts of harmless love.

Good heaven! what sorrows gloomed that parting
That called them from their native walks away; [day,
When the poor exiles, every pleasure past,
Hung round the bowers, and fondly looked their last,
And took a long farewell, and wished in vain
For seats like these beyond the western main;
And, shuddering still to face the distant deep,
Returned and wept, and still returned to weep.
The good old sire, the first prepared to go
To new-found worlds, and wept for others' wo;
But for himself, in conscious virtue brave,
He only wished 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 a father's arms.

With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes,
And blessed the cot where every pleasure rose;
And kissed her thoughtless babes with many a tear,
And clasped them close, in sorrow doubly dear;
Whilst her fond husband strove to lend relief
In all the silent manliness of grief.

O, luxury! thou cursed by heaven's decree,
How ill exchanged 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 large and more large they grow,
A bloated mass of rank unwieldy wo;

Till sapped their strength, and every part unsound,
Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round.
E'en now the devastation is begun,
And half the business of destruction done;
E'en now, methinks, as pondering here I stand,
I see the rural virtues leave the land.

Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail
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 placed 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 for honest fame;
Dear charming nymph! neglected and decried,
My shame in crowds, my solitary pride.
Thou source of all my bliss, and all my wo,
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;
Farewell, and O! where'er thy voice be tried,
On Torno's cliffs, or Pambamarca's side,

Whether where equinoctial fervours glow,
Or winter wraps the polar world in snow,
Still let thy voice, prevailing over time,
Redress the rigours of the inclement clime;
Aid slighted truth, with thy persuasive strain;
Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain;
Teach him, that states of native strength possessed,
Though very poor, may still be very blessed;
That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay,
As ocean sweeps the laboured mole away;
While self-dependent power can time defy,
As rocks resist the billows and the sky.