| |
| REMOTE, unfriended, melancholy, slow, | |
| Or by the lazy Scheldt, or wandering Po; | |
| Or onward, where the rude Carinthian boor, | |
| Against the houseless stranger shuts the door; | |
| Or where Campania’s plain forsaken lies, | 5 |
| A weary waste expanding to the skies: | |
| Where’er I roam, whatever realms to see, | |
| My heart untravell’d fondly turns to thee; | |
| Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain, | |
| And drags at each remove a lengthening chain. | 10 |
| |
| Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend, | |
| And round his dwelling guardian saints attend: | |
| Bless’d be that spot, where cheerful guests retire | |
| To pause from toil, and trim their ev’ning fire; | |
| Bless’d that abode, where want and pain repair, | 15 |
| And every stranger finds a ready chair; | |
| Bless’d be those feasts with simple plenty crown’d, | |
| Where all the ruddy family around | |
| Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail, | |
| Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale, | 20 |
| Or press the bashful stranger to his food, | |
| And learn the luxury of doing good. | |
| |
| But me, not destin’d such delights to share, | |
| My prime of life in wand’ring spent and care, | |
| Impell’d, with steps unceasing, to pursue | 25 |
| Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view | |
| That, like the circle bounding earth and skies, | |
| Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies; | |
| My fortune leads to traverse realms alone, | |
| And find no spot of all the world my own. | 30 |
| |
| Even now, where Alpine solitudes ascend, | |
| I sit me down a pensive hour to spend; | |
| And, plac’d on high above the storm’s career, | |
| Look downward where an hundred realms appear; | |
| Lakes, forests, cities, plain, extending wide, | 35 |
| The pomp of kings, the shepherd’s humbler pride. | |
| |
| When thus Creation’s charms around combine, | |
| Amidst the store, should thankless pride repine? | |
| Say, should the philosophic mind disdain | |
| That good, which makes each humbler bosom vain? | 40 |
| Let school-taught pride dissemble all it can, | |
| These little things are great to little man; | |
| And wiser he, whose sympathetic mind | |
| Exults in all the good of all mankind. | |
| Ye glitt’ring towns, with wealth and splendour crown’d, | 45 |
| Ye fields, where summer spreads profusion round, | |
| Ye lakes, whose vessels catch the busy gale, | |
| Ye bending swains, that dress the flow’ry vale, | |
| For me your tributary stores combine; | |
| Creation’s heir, the world, the world is mine! | 50 |
| |
| As some lone miser visiting his store, | |
| Bends at his treasure, counts, re-counts it o’er; | |
| Hoards after hoards his rising raptures fill, | |
| Yet still he sighs, for hoards are wanting still: | |
| Thus to my breast alternate passions rise, | 55 |
| Pleas’d with each good that heaven to man supplies: | |
| Yet oft a sigh prevails, and sorrows fall, | |
| To see the hoard of human bliss so small; | |
| And oft I wish, amidst the scene, to find | |
| Some spot to real happiness consign’d, | 60 |
| Where my worn soul, each wand’ring hope at rest | |
| May gather bliss to see my fellows bless’d. | |
| |
| But where to find that happiest spot below, | |
| Who can direct, when all pretend to know? | |
| The shudd’ring tenant of the frigid zone | 65 |
| Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own, | |
| Extols the treasures of his stormy seas, | |
| And his long nights of revelry and ease; | |
| The naked negro, panting at the line, | |
| Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine, | 70 |
| Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave, | |
| And thanks his gods for all the good they gave. | |
| Such is the patriot’s boast, where’er we roam, | |
| His first, best country ever is, at home. | |
| And yet, perhaps, if countries we compare, | 75 |
| And estimate the blessings which they share, | |
| Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom find | |
| An equal portion dealt to all mankind, | |
| As different good, by Art or Nature given, | |
| To different nations makes their blessings even. | 80 |
| |
| 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, | 85 |
| 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 strong contest, | |
| That either seems destructive of the rest. | 90 |
| Where wealth and freedom reign contentment fails, | |
| And honour sinks where commerce long prevails. | |
| Hence every state, to one lov’d blessing prone, | |
| Conforms and models life to that alone. | |
| Each to the favourite happiness attends, | 95 |
| 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 try these truths with closer eyes, | |
| And trace them through the prospect as it lies: | 100 |
| 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, | 105 |
| Bright as the summer, Italy extends; | |
| Its uplands sloping deck the mountain’s side, | |
| Woods over woods in gay theatric pride; | |
| While oft some temple’s mould’ring tops between | |
| With venerable grandeur mark the scene. | 110 |
| |
| Could Nature’s bounty satisfy the breast, | |
| The sons of Italy were surely blest. | |
| Whatever fruits in different climes were found, | |
| That proudly rise, or humbly court the ground; | |
| Whatever blooms in torrid tracts appear, | 115 |
| 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; | 120 |
| 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, | 125 |
| 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. | 130 |
| All evils here contaminate the mind | |
| That opulence departed leaves behind; | |
| For wealth was theirs, not far remov’d the date, | |
| When commerce proudly flourish’d through the state; | |
| At her command the palace learn’d to rise, | 135 |
| 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; | 140 |
| 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 plethoric ill. | |
| |
| Yet still the loss of wealth is here supplied | 145 |
| 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; | 150 |
| Processions form’d for piety and love, | |
| A mistress or a saint in every grove. | |
| By sports like these are all their cares beguil’d, | |
| The sports of children satisfy the child; | |
| Each nobler aim, represt by long control, | 155 |
| 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, | |
| Defac’d by time and tottering in decay, | 160 |
| There in the ruin, heedless of the dead, | |
| The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed, | |
| And, wond’ring man could want the larger pile, | |
| Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile. | |
| |
| My soul, turn from them, turn we to survey | 165 |
| 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. | 170 |
| 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, ev’n here, content can spread a charm, | 175 |
| 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; | 180 |
| 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, | 185 |
| Breasts 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. | 190 |
| 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 lov’d partner, boastful of her hoard, | 195 |
| Displays her cleanly platter on the board: | |
| And haply too some pilgrim, thither led, | |
| With many a tale repays the nightly bed. | |
| |
| Thus every good his native wilds impart, | |
| Imprints the patriot passion on his heart, | 200 |
| And ev’n those ills, that round his mansion rise, | |
| 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 sounds molest, | 205 |
| 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 assigned; | |
| Their wants but few, their wishes all confin’d. | 210 |
| 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 from such lands each pleasing science flies, | 215 |
| 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. | 220 |
| Their level life is but a smould’ring fire, | |
| Unquench’d by want, unfann’d 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, | 225 |
| 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 | |
| Unalter’d, unimprov’d, the manners run; | 230 |
| 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 cow’ring on the nest; | |
| But all the gentler morals, such as play | 235 |
| Through life’s more cultur’d walks, and charm the way, | |
| These, far dispers’d, 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. | 240 |
| 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, | 245 |
| And freshen’d from the wave the zephyr flew; | |
| And haply, though my harsh touch, faltering still, | |
| But mock’d all tune, and marr’d the dancer’s skill; | |
| Yet would the village praise my wondrous power, | |
| And dance, forgetful of the noontide hour. | 250 |
| Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days | |
| Have led their children through the mirthful maze, | |
| And the gay grandsire, skill’d in gestic lore, | |
| Has frisk’d beneath the burthen of threescore. | |
| |
| So blest a life these thoughtless realms display, | 255 |
| 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, | 260 |
| 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, are pleas’d, they give to get esteem, | 265 |
| Till seeming blest, they grow to what they seem. | |
| |
| But while this softer art their bliss supplies, | |
| It gives their follies also room to raise; | |
| For praise too dearly lov’d, or warmly sought, | |
| Enfeebles all internal strength of thought; | 270 |
| 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, | 275 |
| 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. | 280 |
| |
| To men of other minds my fancy flies, | |
| Embosom’d 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, | 285 |
| Lift the tall rampire’s artificial pride. | |
| 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: | 290 |
| 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,— | 295 |
| A new creation 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. | 300 |
| Hence all the good from opulence that springs, | |
| With all those ills superfluous treasure brings, | |
| Are here displayed. Their much lov’d wealth imparts | |
| Convenience, plenty, elegance, and arts; | |
| But view them closer, craft and fraud appear, | 305 |
| Ev’n 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, | 310 |
| 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; | 315 |
| How much unlike the sons of Britain now! | |
| |
| Fir’d 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 fam’d Hydaspes glide. | 320 |
| There all around the gentlest breezes stray, | |
| There gentle music melts on every spray; | |
| Creation’s mildest charms are there combin’d, | |
| Extremes are only in the master’s, mind! | |
| Stern o’er each bosom Reason holds her state, | 325 |
| With daring aims irregularly great, | |
| 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 ev’n the peasant boasts these rights to scan, | |
| And learns to venerate himself as man. | |
| |
| Thine, Freedom, thine the blessings pictur’d here, | 335 |
| Thine are those charms that dazzle and endear; | |
| Too bless’d, indeed, were such without alloy, | |
| But foster’d ev’n by Freedom, ills annoy: | |
| That independence Britons prize too high, | |
| Keeps man from man, and breaks the social tie; | 340 |
| 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 repell’d. | |
| Ferments arise, imprison’d factions roar, | 345 |
| Repress’d ambition struggles round her shore, | |
| Till over-wrought, the general system feels | |
| Its motions stop, or phrenzy fires the wheels. | |
| |
| Nor this the worst. As nature’s ties decay, | |
| As duty, love, and honour fail to sway, | 350 |
| 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 stripp’d of all her charms, | 355 |
| The land of scholars, and the nurse of arms, | |
| Where noble stems transmit the patriot flame, | |
| Where kings have toil’d, and poets wrote for fame, | |
| 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; | |
| 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 | 365 |
| The rabble’s rage, and tyrant’s angry steel; | |
| Thou transitory flower, alike undone | |
| By proud contempt, or favour’s fostering sun, | |
| Still may thy blooms the changeful clime endure! | |
| I only would repress them to secure: | 370 |
| For just experience tells, in every soil, | |
| 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. | |
| Hence, should one order disproportion’d grow, | 375 |
| Its double weight must ruin all below. | |
| |
| O then how blind to all that earth 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: | 380 |
| 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; | |
| Each wanton judge new penal statutes draw, | 385 |
| 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, | |
| Tear off reserve, and bare my swelling heart; | 390 |
| Till half a patriot, half a coward grown, | |
| I fly from petty tyrants to the throne. | |
| |
| Yes, brother, curse with me that baleful hour, | |
| When first ambition struck at regal power; | |
| And thus polluting honour in its source, | 395 |
| Gave wealth to sway the mind with double force. | |
| Have we not seen, round Britain’s peopled shore, | |
| Her useful sons exchanged for useless ore? | |
| Seen all her triumphs but destruction haste, | |
| Like flaring tapers brightening as they waste; | 400 |
| 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, | 405 |
| The smiling long-frequented village fall? | |
| Beheld the duteous son, the sire decay’d, | |
| The modest matron, and the blushing maid, | |
| Forc’d from their homes, a melancholy train, | |
| To traverse climes beyond the western main; | 410 |
| Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around, | |
| And Niagara stuns with thund’ring sound? | |
| |
| Even now, perhaps, as there some pilgrim strays | |
| Through tangled forests, and through dangerous ways; | |
| Where beasts with man divided empire claim, | 415 |
| And the brown Indian marks with murderous aim; | |
| There, while above the giddy tempest flies, | |
| And all around distressful yells arise, | |
| 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 sympathise with mine. | |
| |
| 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, | 425 |
| 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, | |
| That part which laws or kings can cause or cure! | 430 |
| Still to ourselves in every place consign’d, | |
| Our own felicity we make or find: | |
| With secret course, which no loud storms annoy, | |
| Glides the smooth current of domestic joy. | |
| The lifted axe, the agonising wheel, | 435 |
| Luke’s iron crown, and Damien’s bed of steel, | |
| To men remote from power but rarely known, | |
| Leave reason, faith, and conscience, all our own. | |
| |
