Low lies that house where nut-brown draughts Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen, who survey inspired,

The rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay! Where gray-beard mirth and smiling toil retired, 'Tis yours to judge how wide the limits stand Where village statesmen talked with looks pro- Between a splendid and a happy land. found,

Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted And news much older than their ale went round.

ore, Imagination fondly stoops to trace

And shouting folly hails them from her shore; The parlor splendors of that festive place: Hoards, e'en beyond the miser's wish, abound, The whitewashed wall, the nicely sanded floor, And rich men flock from all the world around. The varnished clock that clicked behind the door, Yet count our gains : this wealth is but a name, The chest contrived a double debt to pay - That leaves our useful products still the same. A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day, Not so the loss; the man of wealth and pride The pictures placed for ornament and use, Takes up a space that many poor supplied The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose ; Space for his lake, his park's extended boundsThe hearth, except when winter chilled the Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds; day,

The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth With aspen-boughs, and flowers and fennel gay; Has robbed the neighboring fields of half their While broken tea-cups, wisely kept for show,

growth; Ranged o'er the chimney, glistened in a row. His seat, where solitary sports are seen,

Indignant spurns the cottage from the green ; Vain, transitory splendor ! could not all Around the world each needful product flies, Reprieve the tottering mansion from its fall ? For all the luxuries the world supplies ; Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart

While thus the land, adorned for pleasure all An hour's importance to the poor man's heart; In barren splendor, feebly waits the fall. Thither no more the peasant shall repair To sweet oblivion of his daily care;

As some fair female, unadorned and plain, No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale, Secure to please while youth confirms her reign, No more the woodman's ballad shall prevail; Slights every borrowed charm that dress supNo more the smith his dusky brow shall clear,

plies, Relax his ponderous strength, and lean to hear; Nor shares with art the triumph of her eyes; The host himself no longer shall be found

But when those charms are past -- for charms are Careful to see the mantling bliss go round;

frail Nor the coy maid, half willing to be prest,

When time advances, and when lovers fail, Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest.

She then shines forth, solicitous to bless,

In all the glaring impotence of dress : Yes ! let the rich deride, the proud disdain, Thus fares the land, by luxury betrayed, These simple blessings of the lowly train ;

In nature's simplest charms at first arrayed ; To me more dear, congenial to my heart,

But, verging to decline, its splendors rise, One native charm than all the gloss of art ; Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise ; Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play, While, scourged by famine from the smiling The soul adopts, and owns their first-born sway; land, Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind,

The mournful peasant leads his humble band; Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined ;

And while he sinks, without one arm to save, But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade, The country blooms - a garden and a grave. With all the freaks of wanton wealth arrayed In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain,

Where then, ah! where shall poverty reside, The toiling pleasure sickens into pain;

To 'scape the pressure of contiguous pride ? And, e'en while fashion's brightest arts decoy, If, to some common's fenceless limits strayed, The heart, distrusting, asks if this be joy.

He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade,

THE DESERTED VILLAGE.

663

Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide, Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray, And even the bare-worn common is denied.

And fiercely shed intolerable day; If to the city sped, what waits him there?

Those matted woods where birds forget to sing, To see profusion that he must not share;

But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling ; To see ten thousand baneful arts combined Those pois’nous fields, with rank luxuriance To pamper luxury, and thin mankind;

crowned, To see each joy the sons of pleasure know

Where the dark scorpion gathers death around; Extorted from his fellow-creatures' woe.

Where at each step the stranger fears to wake Here while the courtier glitters in brocade, The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake; There the pale artist plies the sickly trade; Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey, Here while the proud their long-drawn pomps dis- | And savage men more murderous still than play,

they; There the black gibbet glooms beside the way. While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies, The dome where pleasure holds her midnight Mingling the ravaged landscape with the skies. reign,

Far different these from every former scene
Here, richly decked, admits the gorgeous train; The cooling brook, the grassy-vested green,
Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square — The breezy covert of the warbling grove,
The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare. That only sheltered thefts of harmless love.
Sure scenes like these no troubles e'er annoy!
Sure these denote one universal joy!

Good Heaven! what sorrows gloomed that parting Are these thy serious thoughts Ah! turn thine day eyes

That called them from their native walks away; Where the poor, houseless, shivering female lies: When the poor exiles, every pleasure past, She once, perhaps, in village plenty blest,

Hung round the bowers, and fondly looked their Has wept at tales of innocence distrest ;

last, Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, And took a long farewell, and wished in vain Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn; For seats like these beyond the western main; Now lost to all — her friends, her virtue fled - And, shuddering still to face the distant deep, Near her betrayer's door she lays her head : Returned and wept, and still returned to weep! And, pinched with cold, and shrinking from the The good old sire the first prepared to go shower,

To new-found worlds, and wept for others' woe; With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour But for himself, in conscious virtue brave, When, idly first, ambitious of the town,

He only wished for worlds beyond the grave. She left her wheel, and robes of country brown. His lovely daughter, lovelier in her tears,

The fond companion of his helpless years, Do thine, sweet Auburn — thine the loveliest Silent went next, neglectful of her charms, train

And left a lover's for her father's arms. Do thy fair tribes participate her pain !

With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes, E'en now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led, And blessed the cot where every pleasure rose; At proud men's doors they ask a little bread. And kissed her thoughtless babes with many a

tear, Ah, no! To distant climes, a dreary scene, And clasped them close, in sorrow doubly dear; Where half the convex world intrudes between, Whilst her fond husband strove to lend relief Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they | In all the silent manliness of grief.

go, Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe.

O luxury! thou curst by Heaven's decree, Far different there, from all that charmed be- How ill exchanged are things like these for thee ! fore,

How do thy potions, with insidious joy, The various terrors of that horrid shore:

Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy!

II.

But thy sounds were sweeter
Than the dome of Peter

Hear the mellow wedding bells —
Flings o'er the Tiber,

Golden bells !
Pealing solemnly.

What a world of happiness their harmony fore-
Oh! the bells of Shandon

tells!
Sound far more grand on

Through the balmy air of night
The pleasant waters

How they ring out their delight!
Of the river Lee.

From the molten-golden notes,

And all in tune,
There's a bell in Moscow;

What a liquid ditty floats
While on tower and kiosk oh

To the turtle dove that listens, while she gloats
In Saint Sophia

On the moon !
The Turkman gets,

Oh, from out the sounding cells,
And loud in air

What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
Calls men to prayer,

How it swells !
From the tapering summit

How it dwells
Of tall minarets.

On the Future ! how it tells

Of the rapture that impels
Such empty phantom

To the swinging and the ringing
I freely grant them;

Of the bells, bells, bells,
But there's an anthem

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
More dear to me-

Bells, bells, bells –
'Tis the bells of Shandon,

To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells !
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the river Lee.

Hear the loud alarum bells-
FATHER PROUT. (Francis Mahony.)

Brazen bells !
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!

In the startled ear of night

How they scream out their affright!
The Bells.

Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,

Out of tune,
HEAR the sledges with the bells —

In the clamorous appealing to the mercy of the
Silver bells -

fire, What a world of merriment their melody fore- In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic tells!

fire
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

Leaping higher, higher, higher,
In the icy air of night!

With a desperate desire,
While the stars that oversprinkle

And a resolute endeavor,
All the heavens, seem to twinkle

Now — now to sit or never,
With a crystalline delight —

By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Keeping time, time, time,

Oh, the bells, bells, bells,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,

What a tale their terror tells
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells

Of despair !
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,

How they clang, and clash, and roar!
Bells, bells, bells -

What a horror they outpour
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells. On the bosom of the palpitating air!

III.

I.