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Along the lawn, where scattered hamlets rose,
Unweildy wealth, and cumbrous pomp repofe;
And every want to opulence allied,

And every pang that folly pays to pride.
These gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom,

Thofe calm defires that afked but little room,

Those healthful sports that graced the peaceful scene,
Lived in each look, and brightened all the green;
These far departing feek a kinder shore,

And rural mirth and manners are no more.

Sweet AUBURN! parent of the blissful hour,
Thy glades forlorn confefs the tyrant's power.
Here as I take my folitary rounds,
Amidft thy tangling walks, and ruined grounds,
And, many a year elapfed, return to view,
Where once the cottage ftood, the hawthorn grew,
Remembrance wakes with all her busy train,
Swells at my breaft, and turns the past to pain.
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In all my wanderings round this world of care,
In all my griefs---and God has given my share---
I still had hopes my latest hours to crown,
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down;
To husband out life's taper at the close,
And keep the flame from wafting by repose.
I still had hopes, for pride attends us still,
Amidft the Swains to fhew thy book-learned fkill,
Around my fire an evening groupe to draw,
And tell of all I felt, and all I faw;

And, as an hare whom hounds and horns purfue,
Pants to the place from whence at first fhe flew,
I still had hopes, my long vexations past,
Here to return---and die at home at last.

O bleft retirement, friend to life's decline, Retreats from care that never must be mine, How happy he who crowns in fhades like these, A youth of labour with an age of cafe; Who quits a world where ftrong temptations try, And, fince 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly!

For him no wretches, born to work and weep,
Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep;
No furly porter ftands in guilty state

To fpurn imploring famine from the gate;
But on he moves to meet his latter end,
Angels around befriending Virtue's friend;
Bends to the grave with unperceived decay,
While refignation gently flopes the way;
And all his profpects brightening to the last,
His Heaven commences ere the world be past !

Sweet was the found when oft at evening's clofe,
Up yonder hill the village murmer rose;
There as I past with careless steps and flow,
The mingling notes came foftened from below;
The fwain refponfive as the milk-maid fung,
The fober herd that lowed to meet their young,
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool,

The playful children just let loose from school,

The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind,
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind,

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These all in sweet confufion fought the shade,
And filled each pause the nightingale had made.
But now the founds of population fail,
No chearful murmurs fluctuate in the gale,
No bufy steps the grafs-grown foot-way tread,
For all the bloomy flufh of life is fled!
All but you widowed, folitary thing

That feebly bends befide the plafhy fpring;
She, wretched matron, forced, in age, for bread,
To ftrip the brook with mantling creffes spread,
To pick her wintry faggot from the thorn,
To feek her nightly fhed, and weep till morn;
She only left of all the harmless train,
The fad hiftorian of the penfive plain.

Near yonder copfe, where once the garden smiled, And ftill where many a garden flower grows wild; There, where a few torn fhrubs the place disclose, The village preacher's modeft mansion rose.

A man he was, to all the country dear,

And passing rich with forty pounds a year;

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Remote from towns he ran his godly race,

Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change his place;
Unpractised he to fawn, or feek for power,

By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,
More fkill 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 defcending swept his aged breast;
The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud,
Claimed kindred there, and had his claim allowed;
The broken foldier kindly bade to stay,

Sate by his fire, and talked the night away ;

Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of forrow done,

Shouldered his crutch, and fhewed how fields were won.

Pleased with his guefts, the good man learned to glow, And quite forgot their vices in their woe;

Careless their merits, or their faults to fcan,

His pity gave ere charity began.

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