But small the bliss that sense alone bestows, In florid beauty groves and fields appear, That opulence departed leaves behind; For wealth was theirs, not far remov'd the date, Yet, still the loss of wealth is here supplied 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, ["But more unsteady than the southern gale, Soon commerce turn'd on other shores her sail."-First edit.] ["Yet, though to fortune lost, here still abide Some splendid arts, the wrecks of former pride."-First edit.] The pasteboard triumph and the cavalcade; A mistress or a saint in every grove. By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd,* As in those domes where Cæsars once bore sway, There in the ruin, heedless of the dead,§ The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed; * [Either Sir Joshua Reynolds, or a mutual friend who immediately communicated the story to him, calling at Goldsmith's lodgings, opened the door without ceremony, and discovered him not in meditation, or in the throes of poetic birth, but in the boyish office of teaching a favorite dog to sit upright upon its haunches, or as it is commonly said, to beg. Occasionally he glanced his eyes over his desk, and occasionally shook his finger at the unwilling pupil, in order to make him retain his position; while on the page before him was written that couplet, with the ink of the second line still wet, from the description of Italy:: "By sports like these are all their cares beguiled, The sports of children satisfy the child." The sentiment seemed so appropriate to the employment, that the visitor could not refrain from giving vent to his surprise in a strain of banter, which was received with characteristic good-humor, and the admission at once made, that the amusement in which he had been engaged had given birth to the idea.— See Life, ch. xiv.] + [Here followed in the first edition : "At sports like these while foreign arms advance, In passive ease they leave the world to chance."] "When struggling Virtue sinks by long control, She leaves at last, or feebly mans the soul."-First edit.] § ["Amidst the ruin, heedless of the dead."-First edit.] My soul, turn from them; turn we to survey Yet still, even here, content can spread a charm, Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm. Though poor the peasant's hut, his feast 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; Or drives his vent'rous ploughshare to the steep; Displays her cleanly platter on the board: Thus every good his native wilds impart, Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms, Such are the charms to barren states assign'd; Their wants but few, their wishes all confin'd. 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 redrest; 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, Unquench'd by want, unfann'd by strong desire ;† [“And as a babe, when scaring sounds molest," &c.-First edit.] "Their level life is but a mouldering fire, Not quench'd by want, nor fann'd by strong desire."-Ibid.] Unfit for raptures, or, if raptures cheer But not their joys alone thus coarsely flow; 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 cultur'd walks, and charm the way, To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign, ["Unaltered, unimproved their manners run."-First edit.] ["I had some knowledge of music," says George Primrose, in the Vicar |