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 smouldering 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 faltering still,
But mocked all tune, and marred the dancer's skill,
Yet would the village praise my wondrous power,
And dance, forgetful of the noon-tide 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.
Gestic lore-the art of movement or dancing.
So blest a life these thoughtless realms display,
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 even 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,1 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 robes 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's2 artificial pride.
1 They please, &c.-"There is perhaps no couplet in English rhyme more perspicuously condensed than those two lines of "The Traveller" in which he (Goldsmith) describes the once flattering, vain, and happy character of the French: "They please, &c. :" Campbell.
2 Tall rampires-the famous dams built round the coast by the Dutch to keep off the ocean.
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,
See 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 creation1 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 liberty2 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,3 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;
1 A new creation-"Holland seems to be a conquest upon the sea, and in a manner rescued from its bosom :" Goldsmith's Animated Nature, i. 276.
2 Even liberty, &c.-" Slavery was permitted in Holland; children were sold by their parents, for a certain number of years:" Mitford.
3 Fired at the sound, &c.-" We talked of Goldsmith's Traveller, of which Dr. Johnson spoke highly; and while I was helping him on with his great coat, he repeatedly quoted from it the character of the British Nation; which he did with such energy, that the tears started in his eye:" Boswell's Johnson, v. 85, last edition.
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 learn 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 even 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,
Repressed ambition struggles round her shore,
Till over-wrought, the general system feels
Its motion stop, or frenzy fire the wheels. * * *
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,1 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.
How small, &c.-These concluding lines, with the exception of the last couplet but one, are said to have been written by Dr. Johnson.
The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel,
Luke's iron crown,' and Damien's bed of steel,2
To men remote from power but rarely known,
Leave reason, faith, and conscience, all our own.
PICTURE OF A VILLAGE LIFE.3
SWEET Auburn!4 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!
Luke's iron crown-"This appears to be a mistake. Zeck, brothers, were both engaged in a desperate rebellion in Hungary, in 1514, and George suffered the torture of the red-hot crown of iron:" Mitford. 2 Damien's bed of steel-Damien, a Frenchman, attempted to assassinate Louis XV, and was horribly put to death by being roasted alive in public, on a bed composed of red-hot bars of steel.
3 The above extract contains the descriptive portions of the Deserted Village, brought together into one view. The remainder of the poem is mainly political, and founded too on principles by no means universally allowed. The beauties of the Deserted Village need no recommendation, but the following sentence of Campbell's may be admitted. "Fiction in poetry is not the reverse of truth, but her soft and enchanted resemblance; and this ideal beauty of nature has been seldom united with so much sober fidelity, as in the groups and scenery of the Deserted Village:" Specimens, &c. p. 526.
4 Auburn-" Lissoy, near Ballymahon, where the poet's brother, the clergyman, had his living, claims the honour of being the spot from which the localities of the Deserted Village are derived. The church which tops the neighbouring hill, the mill, and the brook, are still pointed out :" Sir Walter
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