Though poor the peasant's hut, his feasts

though small,
He fees 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 loathe 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,
Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes;
With patient angle trolls the finny deep,
Or drives his vent'rous plough-Share to the

steep ;
Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark

the way,

And drags the struggling savage into day.
At night returning, every labcur 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 lov'd partner, boastful of her

hoard, Displays her cleanly platter on the board :

And

And haply too some pilgrim, thither led, With many a tale repays the nightly bed. Thus every good his native wilds im

part, Imprints the patriot paffion on his heart, And even those hills, that round his mansion

rife, Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies, Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms; And dear that hill which lifts him to the

storms, And as a child, when scaring founds 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 af,

sign'd : Their wants but few, their wishes all cone

fin'd. 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

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 foul to

fame, Catch every nerve, and vibrate through the

frame. Their level life is but a smould'ring fire, Unquench'd by want, unfann'd by ftrong

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 fire to fon, Unalter'd, unimprov’d the manners run, And love's and friendship's finely pointed

dart Fall blunted from each indurated heart.

Some

Some fterner virtues o'er the mountain's

breast May fit, like falcons cow'ring on the nest; But all the gentler morals, such as play Through life's more cultur'd walks, and

charın the way, These far dispers’d, on timorous pinions fly, To sport and Autter in a kinder sky. To kinder skies, where gentler manners

reign, I turn; and France displays her bright do:

main. Gay sprightly land of mirth and social ease, Pleas’d 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 freshen'd from the wave the zephyr

Yet would the village praise my wonderous

pow'r,
And dance, forgetful of the noon-tide hour.
Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days
Have led their children through the mirth-

ful maze,

And the gay grandfire, skill'd in gestic lore,
Has frisk'd beneath the burden of three.

score.
So bleft a life these thoughtless realms

display,
Thus idly busy rolls their world away :
Theirs are those arts that mind to mind en

dear,
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 ftrays,
And all are taught an avarice of praise :
They please, are pleas'd, they give to get

esteem,
Till, seeming bleft, they grow to what they
feem.

But