...every part unsound, Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round. Even now the devastation is begun, And half the business of destruction done ; Even now,...I see the rural Virtues leave the land. Down where you anchoring vessel spreads the sail, That idly waiting flaps with every gale, " And left plover's...

...every part unsound, Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round. Even now the devastation is begun, And half the business of destruction done ; Even now,...here I stand, I see the rural Virtues leave the land. •'TJbwn where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail That idly waiting flaps with every gale, 400...

...begun, And half the business of destruction done ; E'en now, methinks, as pond'ring here I stand, 1 see the rural Virtues leave the land. Down where yon...the sail, That idly waiting flaps with every gale, Downward they move, a melancholy band, Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand. Contented Toil,...

...now. methinks._as pondering here I stand, " &Lsee tne JUjgj^virtues leave the land. J^JDown where yj>a anchoring vessel spreads the sail That idly waiting flaps with every gale, ft Downward they move, a melancholy-band, Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand : tf. Contented...

...disdain, But own the Village Li f V a life of pain and of Goldsmith's The Deserted Village (1769) E'en now, methinks, as pondering here I stand I see the rural virtues leave the land. And by ordinary arithmetic, in the memory of Sweet Auburn — loveliest village of the plain, Where...

...imagination, so too can the inhumane wastes of London and America be repopulated by imaginative vision: "Even now, methinks, as pondering here I stand, / I see the rural virtues leave the land" (lines 397-98). Here, at the end, we find a second pensive historian, again converting loss into gain,...

...to the last. His Heaven commences ere the world be past! fl fl B Even now the devastation is begun, And half the business of destruction done; Even now,...sail, That idly waiting flaps with every gale, 400 Downward they move, a melancholy band, Pass from the shore and darken all the strand, Contented toil...

...description of those very rural virtues, as the epigraph to his poem: Contented toil, and hospitable care, And kind connubial tenderness, are there; And piety with wishes placed above, And steady loyalty, and faithful love. But Kirby's poem does not use the rural virtues to attract the...

...and darken all the strand. 2 " 26. artisan. 27. gallows. 28. spinning-wheel. 29. beach or shoreline. And kind connubial tenderness, are there; And piety, with wishes placed above, And steady loyalty, and faithful love: And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid, Still first to...

...every part unsound, Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin around. Even now the devastation is begun, And half the business of destruction done; Even now,...here I stand, I see the rural virtues leave the land. (lines 385-96) The repeated "Even now" underlines what we might call the real time of Goldsmith's complaint...