Their buxom health, of rosy hue;
Wild wit, invention ever new ;
And lively cheer, of vigour born:
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,
That fly th' approach of morn.
Alas! regardless of their doom,
The little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to-day;
Yet see how all around them wait
The ministers of human fate,
And black misfortune's baleful train.
Ah! show them where in ambush stand,
To seize their prey, the murderous band,
Ah! tell them they are men!
These shall the fury passions tear,
The vultures of the mind,
Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,
And Shame that skulks behind;
Or pining Love shall waste their youth,
Or Jealousy with rankling tooth,
That inly gnaws the secret heart;
And Envy wan, and faded Care,
Grim-visaged, comfortless Despair,
And Sorrow's piercing dart.
Ambition this shall tempt to rise,
Then whirl the wretch from high,
To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,
And grinning Infamy.
The stings of Falsehood those shall try,
And hard unkindness' altered eye,
That mocked the tear it forced to flow And keen Remorse with blood defiled, And moody Madness laughing wild, Amid severest woe.
Lo, in the vale of years beneath
A grisly troop are seen,
The painful family of Death
More hideous than their queen.
This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
That every labouring sinew strains,
Those in the deeper vitals rage:
Lo, Poverty, to fill the band,
That numbs the soul with icy hand,
And slow consuming Age.
To each his sufferings: all are men
Condemned alike to groan;
The tender for another's pain,
The unfeeling for his own.
Yet ah! why should they know their fate,
Since Sorrow never comes too late,
And Happiness too swiftly flies ;
Thought would destroy their Paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
(1728-1774.)
BORN at the village of Pallas, in the county of Longford (Ireland), where his father was the clergyman on forty pounds ayear." Studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and afterwards spent twelve months in travelling (mostly on foot) through France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. On his return, settled in London, where he gained the friendship of Dr. Johnson, Edmund Burke, and other great men. Life with Goldsmith was one continuous struggle against poverty. He died in 1774, and a monument to his memory was erected in Westminster Abbey, for which Dr. Johnson wrote a Latin inscription. Goldsmith's poetical works are The Traveller; The Deserted Village; The Hermit; Retaliation; etc. His chief prose works are The Vicar of Wakefield; A History of the Earth and Animated Nature; and two Dramas, viz., The Good-Natured Man, and She Stoops to Conquer.
SWEET Auburn !* loveliest village of the plain !
Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain :
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed:
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease;
Seats of my youth, when every sport could please!
How often have I loitered o'er thy green,
Where humble happiness endeared each scene!
How often have I paused on every charm!
The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm,
The never-failing brook, the busy mill,
The decent church that topped the neighbouring hill;
The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age and whispering lovers made.
How often have I blessed the coming day,
When toil remitting lent its turn to play,
And all the village-train, from labour free,
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree!
While many a pastime circled in the shade,
The young contending as the old surveyed ;
And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground,
And sleights of art, and feats of strength went round;
And still, as each repeated pleasure tired,
Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired :
The dancing pair that simply sought renown
By holding out to tire each other down :
The swain, mistrustless of his smutted face,
While secret laughter tittered round the place;
The bashful virgin's side-long looks of love,
The matron's glance that would those looks reprove.
* The village of Lissoy, in the county of Westmeath, where the poet spent the years of his boyhood.
These were thy charms, sweet village! sports like these,
With sweet succession, taught e'en toil to please;
These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed, These were thy charms-but all these charms are fled.
Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,
Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn ;
Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green.
One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain;
No more thy glassy brook reflects the day,
But, choked with sedges, works its weedy way.
Along thy glades, a solitary guest,
The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest;
Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies,
And tires their echoes with unvaried cries.
Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all,
And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall;
And, trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand,
Far, far away thy children leave the land.
Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.
Princes and lords may flourish or may fade ;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.
A time there was, ere England's griefs began,
When every rood of ground maintained its man ;
For him light labour spread her wholesome store,
Just gave what life required, but gave no more:
His best companions, innocence and health,
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.
THE VILLAGE PREACHER.
NEAR Yonder copse where once the garden smiled,
And still where many a garden-flower grows wild,
There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,
The village preacher's modest mansion rose.
A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year.
Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change his place;
Unpractised he to fawn, or seek for power,
By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,
More skilled to raise the wretched than to rise.
His house was known to all the vagrant train,
He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain;
The long-remembered beggar was his guest,
Whose beard descending, swept his aged breast;
The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud,
Claimed kindred there, and had his claim allowed;
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay,
Sat by his fire and talked the night away;
Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done,
Shouldered his crutch, and showed how fields were
Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow,
And quite forgot their vices in their woe;
Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.
Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride,
And e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side;
But in his duty prompt at every call,
He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all:
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies,
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