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The canvass glow'd beyond even nature warm,
The pregnant quarry teem'd with human form;
Till, more unsteady than the southern gale,
Commerce on other shores display'd her sail,
While nought remain'd, of all that riches gave,
But towns unmann'd and lords without a slave-
And late the nation found, with fruitless skill,
Its former strength was but plethoric ill.

Yet, still the loss of wealth is here supplied
By arts, the splendid wrecks of former pride:
From these the feeble heart and long-fallen mind
An easy compensation seem to find.

Here may be seen, in bloodless pomp array'd,

The pasteboard triumph and the cavalcade ;
Processions form'd for piety and love—

A mistress or a saint in every grove:

By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd;
The sports of children satisfy the child.
Each nobler aim, repress'd by long control,

Now sinks at last, or feebly mans the soul;

While low delights, succeeding fast behind,

In happier meanness occupy the mind.

As in those domes, where Cæsars once bore sway,
Defac'd by time and tottering in decay,

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There in the ruin, heedless of the dead,

The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed;
And, wondering man could want the larger pile,
Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile.

My soul, turn from them, turn we to survey

Where rougher climes a nobler race display

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Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansions tread,
And force a churlish soil for scanty bread.
No product here the barren hills afford

But man and steel, the soldier and his sword;
No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array,
But winter lingering chills the lap of May;
No zephyr fondly sues the mountain's breast,
But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest.

Yet still, even here, content can spread a charm,
Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm.

Though poor the peasant's hut, his feasts though small,

He sees his little lot the lot of all

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Sees no contiguous palace rear its head,

To shame the meanness of his humble shed-
No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal,
To make him loathe his vegetable meal—
But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil,
Each wish contracting, fits him to the soil.
Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose,
Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes;
With patient angle trolls the finny deep;

Or drives his venturous ploughshare to the steep;
Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark the way,

And drags the struggling savage into day.

At night returning, every labour sped,
He sits him down the monarch of a shed;

Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys
His children's looks, that brighten at the blaze-
While his lov'd partner, boastful of her hoard,

Displays her cleanly platter on the board:

And haply too some pilgrim, thither led,

With many a tale repays the nightly bed.

Thus every good his native wilds impart

Imprints the patriot passion on his heart;

And even those ills, that round his mansion rise,
Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies:

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Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansions tread,
And force a churlish soil for scanty bread.
No product here the barren hills afford

But man and steel, the soldier and his sword;
No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array,
But winter lingering chills the lap of May ;
No zephyr fondly sues the mountain's breast,
But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest.

Yet still, even here, content can spread a charm,
Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm.

Though poor the peasant's hut, his feasts though small,
He sees his little lot the lot of all

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