Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

Where wealth and freedom reign, contentment fails;

And honour sinks where commerce long prevails.

Hence every state to one lov'd blessing prone,

Conforms and models life to that alone.

Each to the fav'rite happiness attends,

And spurns the plan that aims at other ends;
Till carry'd to excess in each domain,

This fav'rite good begets peculiar pain.

But let us try these truths with closer eyes,

And trace them through the prospect as it lies:
Here for a while my proper cares resign'd,
Here let me sit in sorrow for mankind;

Like yon neglected shrub, at random cast,
That shades the steep, and sighs at every blast.
Far to the right, where Appennine ascends,
Bright as the summer, Italy extends;

Its uplands sloping deck the mountain's side,
Woods over woods in gay theatric pride;

While oft some temple's mould'ring tops between

With memorable grandeur mark the scene.

Could Nature's bounty satisfy the breast,

The sons of Italy were surely blest.

Whatever fruits in different climes are found,

That proudly rise, or humbly court the ground;
Whatever blooms in torrid tracts appear,

Whose bright succession decks the vary'd year;
Whatever sweets salute the northern sky
With vernal lives, that blossom but to die;
These here disporting own the kindred soil,
Nor ask luxuriance from the planter's toil;
While sea-born gales their gelid wings expand,
To winnow fragrance round the smiling land.

But small the bliss that sense alone bestows....

And sensual bliss is all the nation knows.

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 penance 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 every grove.

By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd....
The sports of children satisfy the child:

Each nobler aim, represt by long controul,
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 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.

G

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.

Tho' poor the peasant's hut, his feasts tho' 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,
Breasts 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.

« FöregåendeFortsätt »