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-blossom'd vale,
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail,
The crowded mart, the cultivated plain,
A new creation rescued from his reign.

290

295

Convenience, plenty, elegance, and arts;

But view them closer, craft and fraud appear;

305

Even liberty itself is barter'd 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.

310

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!

315

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!

1 Var.-Industrious habits in each breast obtain.-First edition.

320

Stern o'er each bosom Reason holds her state,
With daring aims irregularly great,

325

Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,

I see the lords of human kind pass by;

Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band,

By forms unfashion'd, fresh from Nature's hand;

330

Fierce in their native hardiness of soul,

True to imagin'd right, above control,

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

Thine, Freedom, thine the blessings pictured here, 335 Thine are those charms that dazzle and endear!

Too blest indeed were such without alloy;

But, foster'd 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,"

340

All claims that bind and sweeten life unknown;
Here, by the bonds of nature feebly held,
Minds combat minds, repelling and repell'd;
Ferments arise, imprison'd factions roar,
Represt ambition struggles round her shore;
Till, overwrought, the general system feels
Its motion stop, or frenzy fire the wheels.

345

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,

350

355

1 These last ten lines were greatly admired by Dr. Johnson, vide Boswell's Life,' v. v. p. 85.--ED.

2 Var. This and the following line are wanting in the first edition;

where follows:

See, though by circling deeps together held, 'Minds, &c.

The second edition has :

All kindred claims that soften life, &c.

Where noble stems transmit the patriot flame,

Where kings have toil'd, and poets wrote for fame,1
One sink of level avarice shall lie,

And scholars, soldiers, kings, unhonour'd die.

360

Yet think not, thus when Freedom's ills I state,
I mean to flatter kings, or court the great: 2
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

365

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,

370

That those who think must govern those that toil;

And all that Freedom's highest aims can reach,
Is but to lay proportion'd loads on each.3
Hence, should one order disproportion'd grow,
Its double weight must ruin all below.

375

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;

380

1 Var. And monarchs toil, and poets pant for fame, &c.—First to fifth editions-except second, which has "paint for," &c.

2 Var.-After this the following couplet is inserted in the first edition :

Perish the wish, for, inly satisfied,

Above their pomp I hold my ragged pride.

And the next eighteen lines, to "But when contending chiefs," &c., are wanting.

3 Var. After this, in editions two to five,

Much on the low, the rest as rank supplies,

Should in columnar diminution rise, &c.

This doctrine was probably esteemed rather too aristocratic.-B.

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,
Pillag'd from slaves to purchase slaves at home,-
Fear, pity, justice, indignation, start,

385

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

390

I fly from petty tyrants to the throne.

2

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 exchang'd for useless ore?
Seen all her triumphs but destruction haste,
Like flaring tapers brightening as they waste?
Seen Opulence, her grandeur to maintain,
Lead stern Depopulation in her train,
And over fields where scatter'd hamlets rose,
In barren, solitary pomp repose?
Have we not seen, at pleasure's lordly call,
The smiling, long frequented village fall?1
Beheld the duteous son, the sire decay'd,
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?

395

400

405

410

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 murderous aim; There, while above the giddy tempest flies,

And all around distressful yells arise,

415

1 This passage is viewed by several editors as disclosing the same theme as that which inspired the Deserted Village,' published five years later. Sir James Prior points to "Have not we" (the author addressing his brother) as evidence that Auburn was an Irish village.-ED. 2 Niagara, it will be observed. This, Prior says, was the old pronunciation of the name of the American river.-ED.

385

The pensive exile, bending with his woe,

*To stop too fearful, and too faint to go,

420

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

390

395

Vain, very vain, my weary search to find
That bliss which only centres in the mind:
Why have I stray'd 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,

425

415

same

d five

or ad

-ED.

onun

*

* That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!
* Still to ourselves in every place consign'd,
* Our own felicity we make or find:

430

* 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 2 bed of steel,
* To men remote from power but rarely known,
reason, faith, and conscience, all our own.

Leave

3

435

In 1514, two brothers, Luke and George Zeck, headed a desperate rebellion in Hungary. When it was quelled, George, not Luke, was punished by having his head encircled with a red-hot crown, in mockery of his supposed ambitious views.-B. The real name of the brothers seems to have been Dosa. Forster says they were of the race of the Szeklers, or Zecklers, of Transylvania. Bolton Corney has on this account substituted" Zeck's" for "Luke's" in the poem.-ED.

2 Robert Francis Damien, a mad fanatic, who, in 1757, made an attempt to assassinate Louis XV. of France. He was put to the most exquisite tortures, and at last torn to pieces by horses.-B.

The nine lines to which an asterisk is prefixed were written by Dr. Johnson, when the poem was submitted to his friendly revision, previous to publication.-B. [This is on the authority of Boswell, who states (Boswell's Life of Johnson,' Bohn's ed., v. ii., p. 308) that Johnson marked the above ten lines, and " added, 'These are all of which I can be sure." In the original editions there are no asterisks, and no intimation of Johnson having contributed these lines; and Boswell's work of course was published after both Goldsmith and Johnson were dead. See also note at p. 45.-ED.]