Nature, a mother kind, alike to all

Still grants her bliss at labour's earnest call;
With food as well the peasant is supplied
On Idra's cliffs, as Arno's shelvy side;
And though the rocky-crested summits frown,
These rocks, by custom, turn to beds of down.
From art more various are the blessings sent,
Wealth, commerce, honour, liberty, content.
Yet these each other's power so long contest,
That either seems destructive of the rest.
Where wealth and freedom reign, contentment fails;
And honour sinks, where commerce long prevails.
Hence, every state, to one loved blessing prone,
Conforms and models life to that alone.
Each to the favourite happiness attends,
And spurns the plan that aims at other ends;
Till, carried to excess in each domain,
This favourite good begets peculiar pain.

But let us view these truths with closer eyes,
And trace them through the prospect as it lies:
Here, for a while, my proper cares resign'd,
Here let me sit, in sorrow for mankind;
Like yon neglected shrub, at random cast,

That shades the steep, and sighs at every blast.

Far to the right, where Apennine ascends,
Bright as the summer, Italy extends;

Its uplands, sloping, deck the mountain's side,
Woods over woods in gay theatrick pride;
While oft some temple's mould'ring top between,
With venerable grandeur marks the scene.

Could nature's bounty satisfy the breast,
The sons of Italy were surely bless'd.
Whatever fruits in different climes are found,
That proudly rise, or humbly court the ground;
Whatever blooms in torrid tracts appear,

Whose bright succession decks the varied year;
Whatever sweets salute the northern sky
With vernal lives, that blossom but to die;
These, here disporting, own the kindred soil,
Nor ask luxuriance from the planter's toil:
While sea-born gales their gelid wings expand,
To winnow fragrance round the smiling land.

But small the bliss that sense alone bestows;
And sensual bliss is all the nation knows.
In florid beauty groves and fields appear;
Man seems the only growth that dwindles here.
Contrasted faults through all his manners reign:
Though poor, luxurious; though submissive, vain ;

Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue;
And e'en in penance, planning sins anew.
All evils here contaminate the mind,

That opulence, departed, leaves behind;

For wealth was theirs, nor far removed the date,
When commerce proudly flourish'd through the state;
At her command, the palace learnt to rise ;
Again the long-fall'n column sought the skies;
The canvas glow'd, beyond e'en nature warm ;
The pregnant quarry teem'd with human form.
Till, more unsteady than the southern gale,

Commerce, on other shores, display'd her sail;
While nought remain'd, of all that riches gave,
But towns unmann'd, and lords without a slave:
And late the nation found, with fruitless skill,
Its former strength was but plethorick ill.

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,
The paste-board triumph, and the cavalcade ;
Processions form'd for piety and love,

A mistress, or a saint, in every grove.

By sports like these are all their cares beguiled;
The sports of children satisfy the child.

Each nobler aim, repress'd by long control,
Now sinks at last, or feebly mans the soul;
While low delights succeeding fast behind,
In happier meanness occupy the mind.

As in those domes, where Cæsars once bore sway,
Defaced by time, and tottering in decay,
There, in the ruin, heedless of the dead,
The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed;
And wondering, man could want the larger pile,
Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile.

My soul turn from them, turn we to survey
Where rougher climes a nobler race display,
Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansions tread,
And force a churlish soil for scanty bread;
No product here the barren hills afford,

But man and steel, the soldier and his sword.
No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array,
But winter, ling'ring, chills the lap of May;
No zephyr fondly sues the mountain's breast,
But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest.

Yet still, e'en here, content can spread a charm, Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm.

Though poor the peasant's hut, his feasts 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;
No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal,
To make him loath his vegetable meal:
But calm, and bred in ignorance, and toil,
Each wish contracting, fits him to the soil.
Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose,
Breathes the keen air, and carols as he goes;
With patient angle, trolls the finny deep,

Or drives his venturous ploughshare to the steep;
Or seeks the den, where snow-tracks mark the

way,

And drags the struggling savage into day.
At night returning, every labour sped,

He sits him down, the monarch of a shed;
Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys
His children's looks, that brighten at the blaze;
While his loved partner, boastful of her hoard:
Displays her cleanly platter on the board:
And haply too some pilgrim, thither led,
With
repays the nightly bed.

many a tale