300

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 stray'd,

He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade, Those fenceless fields the sous of wealth divide,

And e'en 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

311

To pamper luxury, and thin mankind:
To see each joy the sons of pleasure know,
Extorted from his fellow-creatures' woe.
Here, while the courtier glitters in brocade,
There the pale artist plies the sickly trade;
Here, while the proud their long-drawn
pomp display,

There the black gibbet glooms beside the way;

The dome where pleasure holds her midnight reign,

Here, richly deck'd, admits the gorgeous train;

320

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 bless'd, Has wept at tales of innocence distress'd; Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn;

330

Now lost to all; her friends, her virtue fled, 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? E'en now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led, At proud men's doors they ask a little

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, 400
Downward they inove, 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;

410

Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried,

My shame in crowds, my solitary 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; 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, 420 Still let thy voice, prevailing over time, Redress the rigours of th' inclement clime; Aid slighted Truth with thy persuasive train; Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain; Teach him, that states of native strength possess'd,

Though very poor, may still be very bless'd; 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. 430

STANZAS ON WOMAN

WHEN lovely woman stoops to folly,

And finds too late that men betray, What charm can soothe her melancholy, What art can wash her guilt away?

The only art her guilt to cover,

To hide her shame from every eye, To give repentance to her lover, And wring his bosomis, to die.

VERSES

SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY ALEXANDER SELKIRK DURING HIS SOLITARY ABODE ON THE ISLAND OF JUAN FERNANDEZ

I AM monarch of all I survey,

My right there is none to dispute, From the centre all round to the sea, I am lord of the fowl and the brute. O Solitude! where are the charms

That sages have seen in thy face? Better dwell in the midst of alarms,

Than reign in this horrible place.

I am out of humanity's reach,

I must finish my journey alone, Never hear the sweet music of speech, I start at the sound of my own. The beasts that roam over the plain, My form with indifference see; They are so unacquainted with man, Their tameness is shocking to me.

Society, friendship, and love,
Divinely bestowed upon man,
Oh, had I the wings of a dove,

How soon would I taste you again!
My sorrows I then might assuage
In the ways of religion and truth,
Might learn from the wisdom of age,
And be cheered by the sallies of youth.

Religion what treasure untold

Resides in that heavenly word! More precious than silver and gold,

10

20

Or all that this earth can afford. But the sound of the church-going bell These valleys and rocks never heard; 30 Never sighed at the sound of a knell,

Or smiled when a sabbath appeared.

Ye winds, that have made me your sport,
Convey to this desolate shore
Some cordial endearing report
Of a land I shall visit no more.

A frosty morning The foddering of cattle - Tho woodman and his dog. -The poultry-Whimsical ef fects of frost at a waterfall - The Empress of Russia's palace of ice-Amusements of monarchs- War, one of them Wars, whence - And whence monarchy-The evils of it - English and French loyalty contrasted -The Bastille, and a prisoner there - Liberty the chief recommendation of this country- Modern patriotism questionable, and why-The perishable nature of the best human institutions - Spiritual liberty not perishable The slavish state of man by nature - Deliver him, Deist, if you can-Grace must do it - The respective merits of patriots and martyrs stated-Their different treatment- Happy freedom of the man whom grace makes free - His relish of the works of GodAddress to the Creator.

'Tis morning; and the sun with ruddy orb Ascending, fires the horizon: while the

clouds

That crowd away before the driving wind,
More ardent as the disk emerges more,
Resemble most some city in a blaze,
Seen through the leafless wood. His slant-
ing ray

Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale,
And tinging all with his own rosy hue,
From every herb and every spiry blade
Stretches a length of shadow o'er the field.
Mine, spindling into longitude immense, 11
In spite of gravity, and sage remark
That I myself am but a fleeting shade,
Provokes me to a smile. With eye askance
I view the muscular proportioned limb
Transformed to a lean shank. The shape-

less pair,

To seize the fair occasion. Well they eye The scattered grain, and thievishly resolved To escape the impending famine, often scared

As oft return, a pert voracious kind.

Clean riddance quickly made, one only care
Remains to each, the search of sunny nook, 71
Or shed impervious to the blast. Resigned
To sad necessity, the cock foregoes
His wonted strut, and wading at their head
With well-considered steps, seems to resent
His altered gait and stateliness retrenched.
How find the myriads that in summer cheer
The hills and valleys with their ceaseless
songs

Due sustenance, or where subsist they now?

blank,

O'erwhelming all distinction. On the flood,
Indurated and fixed, the snowy weight
Lies undissolved; while silently beneath,
And unperceived, the current steals away. 100
Not so, where scornful of a check it leaps
The mill-dam, dashes on the restless wheel,
And wantons in the pebbly gulf below:
No frost can bind it there; its utmost force
Can but arrest the light and smoky mist
That in its fall the liquid sheet throws wide.
And see where it has hung the embroidered
banks

With forms so various, that no powers of art,

The pencil or the pen, may trace the scene! Here glittering turrets rise, upbearing high (Fantastic misarrangement!) on the roof Large growth of what may seem the sparkling trees

And shrubs of fairy land. The crystal drops That trickle down the branches, fast con

The likeness of some object seen before.
Thus Nature works as if to mock at Art,
And in defiance of her rival powers;
By these fortuitous and random strokes
Performing such inimitable feats,
As she with all her rules can never reach.
Less worthy of applause, though more ad-
mired,

Because a novelty, the work of man,
Imperial mistress of the fur-clad Russ!
Thy most magnificent and mighty freak, 130
The wonder of the North. No forest fell
When thou wouldst build; no quarry sent
its stores

To enrich thy walls; but thou didst hew the floods,

And make thy marble of the glassy wave.
In such a palace Aristæus found
Cyrene, when he bore the plaintive tale
Of his lost bees to her maternal ear:
In such a palace poetry might place
The armoury of Winter; where his troops,
The gloomy clouds, find weapons, arrowy
sleet,

140

Skin-piercing volley, blossom-bruising hail, And snow that often blinds the traveller's

Where all was vitreous; but in order due Convivial table and commodious seat (What seemed at least commodious seat) were there,