While secret laughter titter'd round the place; With sweet succession, taught even toil to please; fled: Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn, One only master grasps the whole domain, The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest; Ill fares the land, to hast'ning ills a prey, A time there was, ere England's griefs began, When every rood of ground maintain❜d its man; For him light labour spread her wholesome store Just gave what life requir'd, but gave no more; His best companions, innocence and health; And his best riches, ignorance of wealth, But times are alter'd; Trade's unfeeling train Usurp the land, and dispossess the swain; Along the lawn, where scatter'd hamlets rose, Unwieldy wealth, and cumb'rous pomp, repose; And every want to luxury ally'd, And every pang that folly pays to pride. Those gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom, Sweet AUBURN! parent of the blissful hour, In all my wand'rings round this world of care, In all my griefs-and God has giv'n my shareI still had hopes, my latest hours to crown, Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down; To husband my anxious day near the close, And keep life's flame from wasting by repose: I still had hopes, for pride attends us still, Amidst the swains to show my book-learn'd skill; Around my fire an evening group to draw, And tell of aИ I felt, and all I saw : And, as a hare whom hounds and horns pursue, Pants to the place from whence at first she flew, I still had hopes, my long vexations past, O blest retirement, friend to life's decline, Retreat from cares, that never must be mine, How blest is he who crowns, in shades like these, A youth of labour, with an age of ease; Who quits a world where strong temptations try, And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly! For him no wretches, born to work and weep, Explore the mine, or tempt the dang’rous deep; No surly porter stands in guilty state, To spurn imploring famine from the gate; But on he moves to meet his latter end, Angels around befriending virtue's friend; Sinks to the grave with unperceiv'd decay, While resignation gently slopes the way; And, all his prospects bright'ning to the last, His heaven commences ere the world be past. Sweet was the sound, when oft, at ev'ning's close, Up yonder hill the village murmur rose; There, as I pass'd with careless steps and slow, The mingling notes came soften'd from below; The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung, The sober herd that low'd to meet their young, The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool, The playful children just let loose from school, The watch-dog's voice that bay'd the whisp'ringwind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind; These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, And fill'd each pause the nightingale had made. But now the sounds of population fail, No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale, No busy steps the grass-grown foot-way tread, But all the biooming flush of life is fled; All but yon w.dow'd, solitary thing, That feebly bends beside the plashy spring: She, wretched matron, forc'd, in age, for bread, To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn; The sad historian of the pensive plain. Near yonder copse, where once the garden smil'd, And still where many a garden-flower grows wild; There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, The village preacher's modest mansion rose. A man he was, to all the country dear, And passing rich with forty pounds a year; Remote from towns he ran his godly race, Nor e'er had chang'd, nor wish'd to change, his place; Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for power Sat by his fire, and talk'd the night away; won. Pleas'd with his guests, the good man learn'd to glow, And quite forgot their vices in their woe; Careless their merits or their faults to scan, His pity gave ere charity began. Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, And even his failings lean'd' to virtue's side; But in his duty prompt at every call, He watch'd and wept, he pray'd and felt, for all. At church, with meek and unaffected grace, Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, With blossom'd furze unprofitably gay, There, in his noisy mansion skill'd to rule, The village master taught his little school; A man severe he was, and stern to view, I knew him well, and every truant knew. Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace The day's disasters in his morning face; |