While his loved partner, boastful of her hoard,
Displays her cleanly platter on the board:
And haply, too, some pilgrim, thither led,
With many a tale repays the nightly bed.
Thus every good his native wilds impart,
Imprints the patriot passion on his heart;
And e'en those ills that round his mansion rise,
Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies.
Dear is that shade to which his soul conforms;
And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms;
And as a child, when scaring sounds molest,
Clings close and closer to the mother's breast,
So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar,
But bind him to his native mountains more.

Such are the charms to barren states assigned;
Their wants but few, their wishes all confined.
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 mould'ring fire,

Unquenched by want, unfanned by strong desire;
Unfit for raptures, or, if raptures cheer
On some high festival of once a year,
In wild excess the vulgar breast takes fire,
Till buried in debauch the bliss expire.

But not their joys alone thus coarsely flow:
Their morals, like their pleasures, are but low.
For, as refinement stops, from sire to son
Unaltered, unimproved the manners run;
And love's and friendship's finely-pointed dart
Fall blunted from each indurated heart.

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 cultured walks, and charm the way These, far dispersed on timorous pinions fly,

To sport and flutter in a kinder sky.

To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign,

I turn; and France displays her bright domain.
Gay sprightly land of mirth and social ease,

Pleased with thyself, whom all the world can please,
How often have I led thy sportive choir,
With tuneless pipe beside the murmuring Loire !
Where shading elms along the margin grew,
And freshened from the wave the zephyr flew;
And haply, though my harsh touch, falt'ring still
But mocked all tune, and marred the dancer's skill,
Yet would the village praise my wondrous power,
And dance, forgetful of the noontide hour.
Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days
Have led their children through the mirthful maze,
And the gay grandsire, skilled in gestic lore,
Has frisked beneath the burden of threescore.

So blest a life these thoughtless realms display, i
Thus idly busy rolls their world away:

Theirs are those arts that mind to mind endear,
For honour forms the social temper here,
Honour, that praise which real merit gains,
Or e'en imaginary worth obtains,

Here passes current; paid from hand to hand,
It shifts in splendid traffic round the land;
From courts, to camps, to cottages it strays,
And all are taught an avarice of praise;
They please, are pleased, they give to get esteem,
Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem.
But while this softer art their bliss supplies,
It gives their follies also room to rise:
For praise too dearly loved, or warmly sought.
Enfeebles all internal strength of thought;
And the weak soul, within itself unblest,
Leans for all pleasure on another's breast.
Hence ostentation here, with tawdry art,
Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart;
Here vanity assumes her pert grimace,
And trims her robe of frieze with copper lace;
Here beggar pride defrauds her daily cheer,
To boast one splendid banquet once a year;
The mind still turns where shifting fashion draws,
Nor weighs the solid worth of self-applause.
To men of other minds my fancy flies,
Embosomed in the deep where Holland lies.
Methinks her patient sons before me stand,
Where the broad ocean leans against the land,
And, sedulous to stop the coming tide,
Lift the tall rampire's artificial pride.
Onward, methinks, and diligently slow,
The firm connected bulwark seems to grow;
Spreads its long arms amidst the watery roar,
Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore.
While the pent ocean, rising o'er the pile,
Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile;
The slow canal, the yellow-blossomed vale,
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail,
The crowded mart, the cultivated plain,
A new creation rescued from his reign.

Thus, while around the wave-subjected soil
Impels the native to repeated toil,
Industrious habits in each bosom reign,
And industry begets a love of gain.

Hence all the good from opulence that springs,
With all those ills superfluous treasure brings,

Are here displayed. Their much-loved wealth imparts
Convenience, plenty, elegance, and arts;

But view them closer, craft and fraud appear,
Even liberty itself is bartered here.

At gold's superior charms all freedom flies,
The needy sell it, and the rich man buys;

A land of tyrants, and a den of slaves,
Here wretches seek dishonourable graves,
And calmly bent, to servitude conform,
Dull as their lakes that slumber in the storm.
Heavens! how unlike their Belgic sires of old!
Rough, poor, content, ungovernably bold;
War in each breast, and freedom on each brow-
How much unlike the sons of Britain now!

Fired at the sound, my genius spreads her wing,'
And flies where Britain courts the western spring;

Where lawns extend that scorn Arcadian pride,
And brighter streams than famed Hydaspes glide,
There all around the gentlest breezes stray,
There gentle music melts on every spray;
Creation's mildest charms are there combined,
Extremes are only in the master's mind!
Stern o'er each bosom reason holds her state,
With daring aims irregularly great.
Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
I see the lords of humankind pass by;
Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band,

By forms unfashioned fresh from nature's hand.
Fierce in their native hardiness of soul,

True to imagined right, above control,

While even the peasant boasts these rights to scan, And learns to venerate himself as man.

Thine, Freedom, thine the blessings pictured here, Thine are those charms that dazzle and endear; Too blest indeed were such without alloy, But fostered e'en by freedom ills annoy; That independence Britons prize too high, Keeps man from man and breaks the social tie; The self-dependent lordlings stand alone, All claims that bind and sweeten life unknown; Here by the bonds of nature feebly held, Minds combat minds, repelling and repelled. Ferments arise, imprisoned factions roar, Represt ambition struggles round her shore, Till over-wrought, the general system feels Its motions stop, or frenzy fire the wheels.

Nor this the worst. As nature's ties decay, As duty, love, and honour fail to sway, Fictitious bonds, the bonds of wealth and law, Still gather strength, and force unwilling awe. Hence all obedience bows to these alone, And talent sinks, and merit weeps unknown: Till time may come, when stript of all her charms, The land of scholars, and the nurse of arms, Where noble stems transmit the patriot flame, Where kings have toiled, and poets wrote for fame, One sink of level avarice shall lie,

And scholars, soldiers, kings unhonoured die.

Yet think not, thus when Freedom's ills I state,
I mean to flatter kings, or court the great;
Ye powers of truth, that bid my soul aspire
Far from my bosom drive the low desire;
And thou, fair freedom, taught alike to feel
The rabble's rage, and tyrant's angry steel;
Thou transitory flower, alike undone
By proud contempt, or favour's fostering sun,
Still may thy blooms the changeful clime endure,
I only would repress them to secure;

For just experience tells, in every soil,

That those that think must govern those that toil;
And all that freedom's highest aims can reach,

Is but to lay propcrtioned loads on each.
Hence, should one order disproportioned grow,
Its double weight must ruin all below.
O then how blind to all that truth requires,
Who think it freedom when a part aspires!
Calm is my soul, nor apt to rise in arms,
Except when fast approaching danger warms;

But when contending chiefs blockade the throne,
Contracting regal power to stretch their own,
When I behold a factious band agree

To call it freedom when themselves are free;
Each wanton judge new penal statutes draw,
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law;
The wealth of climes, where savage nations roam,
Pillaged from slaves to purchase slaves at home;
Fear, pity, justice, indignation start,

Tear off reserve, and bear my swelling heart;
Till half a patriot, half a coward grown,

I fly from petty tyrants to the throne.

Yes, brother, curse with me that baleful hour,
When first ambition struck at regal power;
And thus polluting honour in its source,
Gave wealth to sway the mind with double force.
Have we not seen, round Britain's peopled shore,
Her useful sons exchanged for useless ore?
Seen all her triumphs but destruction haste,
Like flaring tapers bright'ning as they waste;
Seen opulence, her grandeur to maintain,
Lead stern depopulation in her train,
And over fields where scattered hamlets rose,
In barren solitary pomp repose?

Have we not seen at pleasure's lordly call,
The smiling long-frequented village fall?
Beheld the duteous son, the sire decayed,
The modest matron, and the blushing maid,
Forced from their homes a melancholy train,
To traverse climes beyond the western main';
Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,
And Niagara stuns with thund'ring sound?

E'en now, perhaps, as there some pilgrim strays
Through tangled forests, and through dangerous ways;
Where beasts with man divided empire claim,
And the brown Indian marks with murd'rous aim;
There, while above the giddy tempest flies,

And all around distressful yells arise,

The pensive exile, bending with his woe,
To stop too fearful, and too faint to go,

Casts a long look where England's glories shine,
And bids his bosom sympathise with mine.

Vain, very vain, my weary search to find
That bliss which only centres in the mind;
Why have I strayed from pleasure and repose,
To seek a good each government bestows?
In every government, though terrors reign,
Though tyrant kings, or tyrant laws restrain,
How small of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.
Still to ourselves in every place consigned,
Our own felicity we make or find;

With secret course, which no loud storms annoy,
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.

The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel,

Luke's iron crown, and Damien's bed of steel,
To men remote from power but rarely known,
Leave reason, faith, and conscience all our own.

The Deserted Village' is limited to design, and, according to Macaulay, is incongruous in its parts. The village in its happiest

days is a true English village, while in its decay it is an Irish village. The felicity and the misery which he has brought close together belong to two different countries and to two different stages in the progress of society.' But there is no poem in the English language more universally popular than the 'Deserted Village.' Its best passages are learned in youth, and never quit the memory. Its delineations of rustic life accord with those ideas of romantic purity, seclusion, and happiness, which the young mind associates with the country and all its charms, before modern manners and oppression had driven them away

To pamper luxury, and thin mankind.

Political economists may dispute the axiom that luxury is hurtful to nations; but Goldsmith has a surer advocate in the feelings of the heart, which yield a spontaneous assent to the principles he inculcates, when teaching by examples, with all the efficacy of apparent truth, and all the effect of poetical beauty and excellence.

Description of Auburn-The Village Preacher, the Schoolmaster, and Ale-house-Reflections.

Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain,

Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain;
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,

And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed;

Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,

Seats of my youth, when every sport could please;

How often have I loitered o'er thy green,

Where humble happiness endeared each scene!
How often have I paused on every charm;

The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm;

The never-failing brook, the busy mill;

The decent church that topped the neighbouring hill;

The hawthorn-bush, with seats beneath the shade,

For talking age and whispering lovers made!

How often have I blessed the coming day,

When toil remitting lent its turn to play;
And all the village train, from labour free;
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree;
While many a pastime circled in the shade,
The young contending as the old surveyed';
And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground,

And sleights of art and feats of strength went round.
And still, as each repeated pleasure tired,
Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired;
The dancing pair that simply sought renown,
By holding out to tire each other down;

The swain, mistrustless of his smutted face,
While secret laughter tittered round the place;

The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love,

The matron's glance that would those looks reprove

These were thy charms, sweet village! sports like these,
With sweet succession, taught e'en toil to please.
Sweet was the sound, when oft, at evening's close,

Up yonder hill the village murmur rose;

There as I passed, with careless steps and slow,
The mingling notes came softened from below;