Conveys a distant country into mine,

And throws Italian light on English walls:

425

But imitative strokes can do no more

Than please the eye-sweet Nature every sense.

The air salubrious of her lofty hills,

430

The cheering fragrance of her dewy vales,
And music of her woods-no works of man
May rival these; these all bespeak a power
Peculiar, and exclusively her own.
Beneath the open sky she spreads the feast;
'Tis free to all-'tis every day renew'd;
Who scorns it starves deservedly at home.
He does not scorn it, who, imprison'd long
In some unwholesome dungeon, and a prey
To sallow sickness, which the vapours, dank
And clammy, of his dark abode have bred,
Escapes at last to liberty and light :

435

440

His cheek recovers soon its healthful hue;

His eye relumines its extinguished fires;

He walks, he leaps, he runs-is wing'd with joy,

And riots in the sweets of every breeze.

He does not scorn it who has long endur'd

445

A fever's agonies, and fed on drugs.
Nor yet the mariner, his blood inflam'd
With acrid salts; his very heart athirst
To gaze at Nature in her green array,
Upon the ship's tall side he stands, possess'd
With visions prompted by intense desire :
Fair fields appear below, such as he left
Far distant, such as he would die to find--
He seeks them headlong, and is seen no more.

450'

The spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns; The lowering eye, the petulance, the frown, And sullen sadness, that o'ershade, distort,

455

And mar, the face of beauty, when no cause
For such immeasurable woe appears;

These Flora banishes, and gives the fair

460

Sweet smiles, and bloom less transient than her own.

It is the constant revolution, stale

And tasteless, of the same repeated joys,

That palls and satiates, and makes languid life
A pedlar's pack, that bows the bearer down.
Health suffers, and the spirits ebb; the heart
Recoils from its own choice--at the full feast
Is famish'd-finds no music in the song,

P

465

No smartness in the jest; and wonders why.
Yet thousands still desire to journey on,
Though halt, and weary of the path they tread.
The paralytic, who can hold her cards,

But cannot play them, borrows a friend's hand
To deal and shuffle, to divide and sort,
Her mingled suits and sequences; and sits,
Spectatress both and spectacle, a sad
And silent cipher, while her proxy plays.
Others are dragg'd into the crowded room
Between supporters; and, once seated, sit,
Through downright inability to rise,
Till the stout bearers lift the corpse again.
These speak a loud memento. Yet even these
Themselves love life, and cling to it, as he
That overhangs a torrent, to a twig.

470

475

480

They love it, and yet loath it; fear to die,

485

Yet scorn the purposes for which they live.

Then wherefore not renounce them? No-the dread,

The slavish dread of solitude, that breeds

Reflection and remorse, the fear of shame,

And their inveterate habits, all forbid.

490

Whom call we gay? That honour has been long The boast of mere pretenders to the name.

The innocent are gay-the lark is gay,

That dries his feathers, saturate with dew,
Beneath the rosy cloud, while yet the beanis
Of day-spring overshoot his humble nest.

495

The peasant too, a witness of his song,
Himself a songster, is as gay as he.

But save me from the gaiety of those

Whose head-aches nail them to a noon-day bed;

500

And save me too from their's whose haggard eyes

Flash desperation, and betray their pangs

For property stripp'd off by cruel chance;

From gaiety that fills the bones with pain,

The mouth with blasphemy, the heart with woe.

505

The earth was made so various, that the mind
Of desultory man, studious of change,
And pleas'd with novelty, might be indulg'd.
Prospects, however lovely, may be seen
Till half their beauties fade; the weary sight,
Too well acquainted with their smiles, slides off
Fastidious, seeking less familiar scenes.

510

Then snug enclosures in the shelter'd vale,
Where frequent hedges intercept the eye,
Delight us; happy to renounce awhile,
Not senseless of its charms, what still we love,
That such short absence may endear it more.
Then forests, or the savage rock, may please,
That hides the sea-mew in his hollow clefts
Above the reach of man. His hoary head,
Conspicuous many a league, the mariner,
Bound homeward, and in hope already there,
Greets with three cheers exulting. At his waist
A girdle of half-wither'd shrubs he shows,
And at his feet the baffled billows die.

515

520

525

The common, overgrown with fern, and rough
With prickly gorse, that, shapeless and deform'd,
And dangerous to the touch, has yet its bloom
And decks itself with ornaments of gold,
Yields no unpleasing ramble; there the turf
Smells fresh, and, rich in odoriferous herbs
And fungous fruits of earth, regales the sense
With luxury of unexpected sweets..

530

There often wanders one, whom better days
Saw better clad, in cloak of satin trimm'd
With lace, and hat with splendid ribband bound.
A serving maid was she, and fell in love
With one who left her, went to sea, and died.
Her fancy follow'd him through foaming waves
To distant shores; and she would sit and weep
At what a sailor suffers; fancy, too,
Delusive most where warmest wishes are,
Would oft anticipate his glad return,

535

540

And dream of transports she was not to know,

She heard the doleful tidings of his death-
And never smil'd again! And now she roams

545

The dreary waste; there spends the livelong day,
And there, unless when charity forbids,

The livelong night. A tatter'd apron hides,

Worn as the cloak, and hardly hides, a gown
More tatter'd still; and both but ill conceal
A bosom heav'd with never-ceasing sighs.
She begs an idle pin of all she meets,

550

And hoards them in her sleeve; but needful food,
Though press'd with hunger oft, or comelier cloth,
Tho' pinch'd with cold, asks never.-Kate is craz'd!

555

I see a column of slow rising smoke O'ertop the lofty wood that skirts the wild. A vagabond and useless tribe there eat Their miserable meal. A kettle, slung Between two poles upon a stick transverse, Receives the morsel-flesh obscene of dog, Or vermine, or, at best, of cock purloin'd

560

From his accustom'd perch. Hard-faring race!

They pick their fuel out of every hedge,

565

Which, kindled with dry leaves, just saves unquench'd

The spark of life. The sportive wind blows wide

Their fluttering rags, and shews a tawny skin,

The vellum of the pedigree they claim.

Great skill have they in palmistry, and more

570

To conjure clean away the gold they touch,

Conveying worthless dross into its place;

Loud when they beg, dumb only when they steal.

Strange! that a creature rational, and cast
In human mould, should brutalize by choice
His nature; and, though capable of arts

575

By which the world might profit, and himself,
Self-banish'd from society, prefer

Such squalid sloth to honourable toil!

Yet even these, though, feigning sickness oft,

580

They swathe the forehead, drag the limping linib,

And vex their flesh with artificial sores,

Can change their whine into a mirthful note

When safe occasion offers; and, with dance,

And music of the bladder and the bag,

585

Beguile their woes, and make the woods resound.

Such health and gaiety of heart enjoy

The houseless rovers of the sylvan world;

And, breathing wholesome air, and wand'ring much,

Need other physic none to heal th' effects

590

Of loathsome diet, penury, and cold.

Blest he, though undistinguished from the croud

By wealth or dignity, who dwells secure,

Where man, by nature fierce, has laid aside

His fierceness; having learnt, though slow to learn,

595

The manners and the arts of civil life.

His wants, indeed, are many; but supply
Is obvious, plac'd within the easy reach
Of temperate wishes and industrious hands.
Here virtue thrives, as in her proper
soil;
Not rude and surly, and beset with thorns,

600

And terrible to sight, as when she springs
(If e'er she springs spontaneous) in remote
And barbarous climes, where violence prevails,
And strength is lord of all; but gentle, kind,
By culture tam'd, by liberty refresh'd,
And all her fruits by radiant truth matur'd.
War and the chase engross the savage whole;
War follow'd for revenge, or to supplant
The envied tenants of some happier spot:
The chase for sustenance, precarious trust!
His hard condition with severe constraint
Binds all his faculties, forbids all growth

605

610

Of wisdom, proves a school in which he learns
Sly circumvention, unrelenting hate,

615

Mean self-attachment, and scarce aught beside.
Thus fare the shivering natives of the north,
And thus the rangers of the western world,
Where it advances far into the deep,

Towards the antarctic. Even the favour'd isles,

620

So lately found, although the constant sun.
Cheer all their seasons with a grateful smile,
Can boast but little virtue; and, inert,

Through plenty, lose in morals, what they gain
In manners-victims of luxurious ease.

625

These, therefore, I can pity, plac'd remote
From all that science traces, art invents,
Or inspirarion teaches; and enclosed
In boundless oceans, never to be pass'd
By navigators uninformed as they;

630

Or plough'd perhaps by British bark again :

But, far beyond the rest, and with most cause,

Thee, gentle savage! whom no love of thee
Or thine, but curiosity, perhaps,

Or else vain glory, prompted us to draw

635

Forth from thy native bowers to shew thee here
With what superior skill we can abuse

The gifts of Providence, and squander life.

The dream is past; and thou hast found again
Thy cocoas and bananas, palms and yams,
And homestall thatch'd with leaves.

640

But hast thou found

Their former charms? And, having seen our state,

Our palaces, our ladies, and our pomp
Of equipage, our gardens, and our sports,
And heard our music; are thy simple friends,

645

* Omai.