Sure scenes like these no troubles e'er annoy! Sure these denote one universal joy! Are these thy serious thoughts? Ah, turn thine eyes Where the poor houseless shivering female lies: She once, perhaps, in village plenty blest, Has wept at tales of innocence distrest: Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, Near her betrayer's door she lays her head, And, pinch'd with cold, and shrinking from the shower, With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour When idly first, ambitious of the town, She left her wheel and robes of country brown. Do thine, sweet Auburn, thine, the loveliest train, Do thy fair tribes participate her pain? E'en now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led, Ah, no. To distant climes, a dreary scene, Where half the convex world intrudes between, Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go, Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe. Far different there from all that charm'd before, And fiercely shed intolerable day; Those matted woods where birds forget to sing, The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake; Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey, Good Heaven! what sorrows gloom'd that parting day, That called them from their native walks away! When the poor exiles, every pleasure past, Hung round the bowers, and fondly look'd their last, And took a long farewell, and wish'd in vain For seats like these beyond the western main ; But for himself, in conscious virtue brave, With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes, And kiss'd her thoughtless babes with many a tear, How do thy potions, with insidious joy, Kingdoms by thee, to sickly greatness grown, At every draught more large and large they grow, E'en now the devastation is begun, And half the business of destruction done; E'en now, methinks, as pondering here I stand, I see the rural virtues leave the land. |