WEET AUBURN, lovelieft village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheared 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 fport 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 bufy mill,
The decent church that topt the neighbouring hill,
The hawthorn bush, with feats beneath the shade,
For talking age and whispering lovers made;
How often have I bleft 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 fpreading tree;
While many a paftime circled in the fhade,
The young contending as the old furveyed;
And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground,
And flights of art and feats of ftrength went round;
And ftill as each repeated pleasure tired,
Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired;
The dancing pair that fimply fought renown
By holding out to tire each other down;
The fwain miftruftlefs of his fmutted face,
While fecret laughter tittered round the place;
The bashful virgin's fide-long looks of love,
The matron's glance that would those looks reprove!
Thefe were thy charms, fweet village; fports like thefe,
With sweet succeffion, taught even toil to please;
These round thy bowers their chearful influence shed,
These were thy charms---But all these charms are fled.
Sweet fmiling village, lovelieft of the lawn,
Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn:
Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is feen,
And defolation faddens all thy green;
One only master grafps the whole domain,
And half a tillage ftints thy fmiling plain :
No more thy glaffy brook reflects the day,
But choaked with fedges, works it weedy way."
Along thy glades, a folitary guest,
The hollow founding bittern guards its neft;
Amidst thy defert walks the lapwing flies,
And tires their ecchoes with unvaried cries.
Sunk are thy bowers, in fhapeless ruin all,
And the long grafs o'ertops the mouldering wall;
And trembling, fhrinking from the fpoiler's hands,
Far, far away thy children leave the land.
Ill fares the land, to haftening 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,
Juft gave what life required, but gave no more :
His beft companions, innocence and health;
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.
But times are altered; trade's unfeeling train
Ufurp the land and dispossess the swain ;
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