The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth, His seat, where solitary sports are seen, As some fair female, unadorn'd and plain, Secure to please while youth confirms her reign, Slights every borrow'd charm that dress supplies, Nor shares with art the triumph of her eyes: But when those charms are past, for charms are frail, When time advances, and when lovers fail, She then shines forth, solicitous to bless, In all the glaring impotence of dress. Thus fares the land, by luxury betray'd, In nature's simplest charms at first array'd, But verging to decline, its splendors rise, Its vistas strike, its palaces surprize; While, scourg'd by famine from the smiling land, The mournful peasant leads his humble band; And while he sinks, without one arm to save, The country blooms-a garden and a grave. Where then, ah! where shall poverty reside, To 'scape the pressure of contiguous pride? If to some common's fenceless limits stray'd, He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade, Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide, And ev'n the bare-worn common is deny'd. If to the city sped, what waits him there? To see profusion that he must not share; To see ten thousand baneful arts combin'd To pamper luxury, and thin mankind; To see each joy the sons of pleasure know, Extorted from his fellow-creature's woe. Here, while the courtier glitters in brocade, There the pale artist plies the sickly trade; Here, while the proud their long-drawn pomp display, There the black gibbet glooms beside the way. The dome where pleasure holds her midnight reign, Here, richly deck'd, admits the gorgeous train; Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square, The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare: 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. F She once, perhaps, in village plenty blest, With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour She left her wheel and robes of country brown. Do thine, fair Auburn, thine, the loveliest train, Do thy fair tribes participate her pain? Ev'n now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led, At poor men's doors they ask a little bread! Ah! no. To distant climes, a dreary scene, Where half the convex world intrudes between, To torrid tracks with fainting steps they go, Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe. Far diff'rent there from all that charm'd before, The various terrors of that horrid shore. Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray, And fiercely shed intolerable day; Those matted woods where birds forget to sing, But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling; Those pois'nous fields with rank luxuriance crown'd, Where the dark scorpion gathers death around: Good Heav'n! what sorrows gloom'd that parting day, 1 That call'd them from their native walks away; 793083 His lovely daughter, lovelier in her tears, O Luxury! thou curst by heaven's decree, How ill exchang'd are things like these for thee! How do thy potions with insidious joy Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy! Kingdoms by thee, to sickly greatness grown, Boast of a florid vigour not their own. At ev'ry draught more large and large they grow, A bloated mass of rank unwieldy woe: Till sapp'd their strength, and ev'ry part unsound, Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round. Ev'n now the devastation is begun, And half the bus'ness of destruction done: Ev'n now, methinks, as pond'ring here I stand, I see the rural virtues leave the land. Down where yon anch'ring vessels spread the sail, That idly waiting flaps with every gale, |