Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (138 page)

Relax his ponderous strength, and lean to hear;
The host himself no longer shall be found
Careful to see the mantling bliss go round;
Nor the coy maid, half willing to be prest,
Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest.
  
250
 
Yes! let the rich deride, the proud disdain,
These simple blessings of the lowly train;
To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm, than all the gloss of art.
Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play,
  
255
The soul adopts, and owns their first-born sway;
Lightly they frolic o’er the vacant mind,
Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined:
But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade,
With all the freaks of wanton wealth array’d,
  
260
In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain,
The toiling pleasure sickens into pain;
And, even while Fashion’s brightest arts decoy,
The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy?
 
Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen, who survey
  
265
The rich man’s joys increase, the poor’s decay,
’Tis yours to judge how wide the limits stand
Between a splendid and a happy land.
Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore,
And shouting Folly hails them from her shore;
  
270
Hoards, even beyond the miser’s wish, abound,
And rich men flock from all the world around.
Yet count our gains. This wealth is but a name
That leaves our useful products still the same.
Not so the loss. The man of wealth and pride
  
275
Takes up a space that many poor supplied;
Space for his lake, his park’s extended bounds,
Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds;
The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth,
Has robb’d the neighbouring fields of half their growth;
  
280
His seat, where solitary sports are seen,
Indignant spurns the cottage from the green;
Around the world each needful product flies,
For all the luxuries the world supplies;
While thus the land, adorn’d for pleasure all,
  
285
In barren splendour feebly waits the fall.
 
As some fair female, unadorn’d and plain,
Secure to please while youth confirms her reign,
Slights every borrow’d charm that dress supplies,
Nor shares with art the triumph of her eyes;
  
290
But when those charms are past, for charms are frail,
When time advances, and when lovers fail,
She then shines forth, solicitous to bless,
In all the glaring impotence of dress;
Thus fares the land by luxury betray’d;
  
295
In nature’s simplest charms at first array’d; —
But verging to decline, its splendours rise,
Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise;
While, scourged by famine, from the smiling land
The mournful peasant leads his humble band;
  
300
And while he sinks, without one arm to save,
The country blooms — a garden and a grave!
 
Where, then, ah! where shall poverty reside,
To ‘scape the pressure of contiguous pride?
If to some common’s fenceless limits stray’d,
  
305
He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade,
Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide,
And even the bare-worn common is denied.
 
If to the city sped — what waits him there?
To see profusion that he must not share;
  
310
To see ten thousand baneful arts combined
To pamper luxury and thin mankind;
To see each joy the sons of pleasure know
Extorted from his fellow-creature’s woe:
Here while the courtier glitters in brocade,
  
315
There the pale artist plies the sickly trade;
Here while the proud their long-drawn pomp display,
There the black gibbet glooms beside the way:
The dome where Pleasure holds her midnight reign,
Here, richly deck’d, admits the gorgeous train;
  
320
Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square,
The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare.
Sure scenes like these no troubles e’er annoy!
Sure these denote one universal joy! —
Are these thy serious thoughts? — Ah, turn thine eyes
  
325
Where the poor houseless shivering female lies:
She once, perhaps, in village plenty bless’d,
Has wept at tales of innocence distress’d;
Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn:
  
330
Now lost to all, her friends, her virtue, fled,
Near her betrayer’s door she lays her head,
And, pinch’d with cold, and shrinking from the shower,
With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour,
When idly first, ambitious of the town,
  
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She left her wheel, and robes of country brown.
 
Do thine, sweet Auburn, thine, the loveliest train,
Do thy fair tribes participate her pain?
E’en now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led,
At proud men’s doors they ask a little bread!
  
340
 
Ah, no. To distant climes, a dreary scene,
Where half the convex world intrudes between,
Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go,
Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe.
Far different there from all that charm’d before,
  
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The various terrors of that horrid shore;
Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray,
And fiercely shed intolerable day;
Those matted woods where birds forget to sing,
But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling;
  
350
Those poisonous fields, with rank luxuriance crown’d,
Where the dark scorpion gathers death around;
Where at each step the stranger fears to wake
The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake;
Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey,
  
355
And savage men more murderous still than they:
While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies,
Mingling the ravaged landscape with the skies.
Far different these from every former scene,
The cooling brook, the grassy-vested green,
  
360
The breezy covert of the warbling grove,
That only shelter’d thefts of harmless love.
 
Good Heaven! what sorrows gloom’d that parting day,
That call’d them from their native walks away;
When the poor exiles, every pleasure past,
  
365
Hung round their bowers, and fondly looked their last,
And took a long farewell, and wish’d in vain,
For seats like these beyond the western main;
And shuddering still to face the distant deep,
Return’d and wept, and still return’d to weep!
  
370
The good old sire the first prepared to go
To new-found worlds, and wept for others’ woe;
But for himself, in conscious virtue brave,
He only wish’d for worlds beyond the grave.
His lovely daughter, lovelier in her tears,
  
375
The fond companion of his helpless years,
Silent went next, neglectful of her charms,
And left a lover’s for a father’s arms.
With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes,
And bless’d the cot where every pleasure rose,
  
380
And kiss’d her thoughtless babes with many a tear,
And clasp’d them close, in sorrow doubly dear;
Whilst her fond husband strove to lend relief
In all the silent manliness of grief.
 
O Luxury, thou cursed by Heaven’s decree,
  
385
How ill exchanged are things like these for thee!
How do thy potions, with insidious joy,
Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy!
Kingdoms by thee to sickly greatness grown,
Boast of a florid vigour not their own;
  
390
At every draught more large and large they grow,
A bloated mass of rank unwieldy woe;
Till sapp’d their strength, and every part unsound,
Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round.
 
E’en now the devastation is begun,
  
395
And half the business of destruction done;
E’en now, methinks, as pondering here I stand,
I see the rural Virtues leave the land.
Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail
That idly waiting flaps with every gale,
  
400
Downward they move, a melancholy band,
Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand;
Contented Toil, and hospitable Care,
And kind connubial Tenderness are there;
And Piety with wishes placed above,
  
405
And steady Loyalty, and faithful Love.
 
And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid
Still first to fly where sensual joys invade!
Unfit, in these degenerate times of shame,
To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame;
  
410
Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried,
My shame in crowds, my solitary pride;
Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe,
That found’st me poor at first, and keep’st me so;
Thou guide by which the nobler arts excel,
  
415
Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well!
Farewell! and oh! where’er thy voice be tried,
On Torno’s cliffs, or Pambamarca’s side,
Whether where equinoctial fervours glow,
Or winter wraps the polar world in snow,
  
420
Still let thy voice, prevailing over time,
Redress the rigours of th’ inclement clime;
Aid slighted Truth with thy persuasive strain;
Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain;
Teach him that states of native strength possest,
  
425
Though very poor, may still be very blest;
That Trade’s proud empire hastes to swift decay,
As ocean sweeps the labour’d mole away;
While self-dependent power can time defy
As rocks resist the billows and the sky.
  
430

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

The Traveller

Or, a Prospect of Society

Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774)

REMOTE, unfriended, melancholy, slow,
Or by the lazy Scheldt, or wandering Po;
Or onward, where the rude Carinthian boor,
Against the houseless stranger shuts the door;
Or where Campania’s plain forsaken lies,
  
5
A weary waste expanding to the skies:
Where’er I roam, whatever realms to see,
My heart untravell’d fondly turns to thee;
Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain,
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.
  
10

 
Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend,
And round his dwelling guardian saints attend:
Bless’d be that spot, where cheerful guests retire
To pause from toil, and trim their ev’ning fire;
Bless’d that abode, where want and pain repair,
  
15
And every stranger finds a ready chair;
Bless’d be those feasts with simple plenty crown’d,
Where all the ruddy family around
Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail,
Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale,
  
20
Or press the bashful stranger to his food,
And learn the luxury of doing good.

 
But me, not destin’d such delights to share,
My prime of life in wand’ring spent and care,
Impell’d, with steps unceasing, to pursue
  
25
Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view
That, like the circle bounding earth and skies,
Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies;
My fortune leads to traverse realms alone,
And find no spot of all the world my own.
  
30

 
Even now, where Alpine solitudes ascend,
I sit me down a pensive hour to spend;
And, plac’d on high above the storm’s career,
Look downward where an hundred realms appear;
Lakes, forests, cities, plain, extending wide,
  
35
The pomp of kings, the shepherd’s humbler pride.

 
When thus Creation’s charms around combine,
Amidst the store, should thankless pride repine?
Say, should the philosophic mind disdain
That good, which makes each humbler bosom vain?
  
40
Let school-taught pride dissemble all it can,
These little things are great to little man;
And wiser he, whose sympathetic mind
Exults in all the good of all mankind.
Ye glitt’ring towns, with wealth and splendour crown’d,
  
45
Ye fields, where summer spreads profusion round,
Ye lakes, whose vessels catch the busy gale,
Ye bending swains, that dress the flow’ry vale,
For me your tributary stores combine;
Creation’s heir, the world, the world is mine!
  
50

 
As some lone miser visiting his store,
Bends at his treasure, counts, re-counts it o’er;
Hoards after hoards his rising raptures fill,
Yet still he sighs, for hoards are wanting still:
Thus to my breast alternate passions rise,
  
55
Pleas’d with each good that heaven to man supplies:
Yet oft a sigh prevails, and sorrows fall,
To see the hoard of human bliss so small;
And oft I wish, amidst the scene, to find
Some spot to real happiness consign’d,
  
60
Where my worn soul, each wand’ring hope at rest
May gather bliss to see my fellows bless’d.

 
But where to find that happiest spot below,
Who can direct, when all pretend to know?
The shudd’ring tenant of the frigid zone
  
65
Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own,
Extols the treasures of his stormy seas,
And his long nights of revelry and ease;
The naked negro, panting at the line,
Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine,
  
70
Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave,
And thanks his gods for all the good they gave.
Such is the patriot’s boast, where’er we roam,
His first, best country ever is, at home.
And yet, perhaps, if countries we compare,
  
75
And estimate the blessings which they share,
Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom find
An equal portion dealt to all mankind,
As different good, by Art or Nature given,
To different nations makes their blessings even.
  
80

 
Nature, a mother kind alike to all,
Still grants her bliss at Labour’s earnest call;
With food as well the peasant is supplied
On Idra’s cliffs as Arno’s shelvy side;
And though the rocky-crested summits frown,
  
85
These rocks, by custom, turn to beds of down.
From Art more various are the blessings sent;
Wealth, commerce, honour, liberty, content.
Yet these each other’s power so strong contest,
That either seems destructive of the rest.
  
90
Where wealth and freedom reign contentment fails,
And honour sinks where commerce long prevails.
Hence every state, to one lov’d blessing prone,
Conforms and models life to that alone.
Each to the favourite happiness attends,
  
95
And spurns the plan that aims at other ends;
Till, carried to excess in each domain,
This favourite good begets peculiar pain.

 
But let us try these truths with closer eyes,
And trace them through the prospect as it lies:
  
100
Here for a while my proper cares resign’d,
Here let me sit in sorrow for mankind,
Like yon neglected shrub at random cast,
That shades the steep, and sighs at every blast.

 
Far to the right where Apennine ascends,
  
105
Bright as the summer, Italy extends;
Its uplands sloping deck the mountain’s side,
Woods over woods in gay theatric pride;
While oft some temple’s mould’ring tops between
With venerable grandeur mark the scene.
  
110

 
Could Nature’s bounty satisfy the breast,
The sons of Italy were surely blest.
Whatever fruits in different climes were found,
That proudly rise, or humbly court the ground;
Whatever blooms in torrid tracts appear,
  
115
Whose bright succession decks the varied year;
Whatever sweets salute the northern sky
With vernal lives that blossom but to die;
These, here disporting, own the kindred soil,
Nor ask luxuriance from the planter’s toil;
  
120
While sea-born gales their gelid wings expand
To winnow fragrance round the smiling land.

 
But small the bliss that sense alone bestows,
And sensual bliss is all the nation knows.
In florid beauty groves and fields appear,
  
125
Man seems the only growth that dwindles here.
Contrasted faults through all his manners reign,
Though poor, luxurious; though submissive, vain,
Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue;
And e’en in penance planning sins anew.
  
130
All evils here contaminate the mind
That opulence departed leaves behind;
For wealth was theirs, not far remov’d the date,
When commerce proudly flourish’d through the state;
At her command the palace learn’d to rise,
  
135
Again the long-fall’n column sought the skies;
The canvas glow’d beyond e’en 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;
  
140
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
  
145
By arts, the splendid wrecks of former pride;
From these the feeble heart and long-fall’n mind
An easy compensation seem to find.
Here may be seen, in bloodless pomp array’d,
The paste-board triumph and the cavalcade;
  
150
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, represt by long control,
  
155
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,
  
160
There in the ruin, heedless of the dead,
The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed,
And, wond’ring man could want the larger pile,
Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile.

 
My soul, turn from them, turn we to survey
  
165
Where rougher climes a nobler race display,
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.
  
170
No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array,
But winter ling’ring chills the lap of May;
No Zephyr fondly sues the mountain’s breast,
But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest.

 
Yet still, ev’n here, content can spread a charm,
  
175
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;
Sees no contiguous palace rear its head
To shame the meanness of his humble shed;
  
180
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,
  
185
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.
  
190
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,
  
195
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,
  
200
And ev’n those ills, that round his mansion rise,
Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies.
Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms,
And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms;
And as a child, when scaring sounds molest,
  
205
Clings close and closer to the mother’s breast,
So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind’s roar,
But bind him to his native mountains more.

 
Such are the charms to barren states assigned;
Their wants but few, their wishes all confin’d.
  
210
Yet let them only share the praises due,
If few their wants, their pleasures are but few;
For every want that stimulates the breast
Becomes a source of pleasure when redrest.
Whence from such lands each pleasing science flies,
  
215
That first excites desire, and then supplies;
Unknown to them, when sensual pleasures cloy,
To fill the languid pause with finer joy;
Unknown those powers that raise the soul to flame,
Catch every nerve, and vibrate through the frame.
  
220
Their level life is but a smould’ring fire,
Unquench’d by want, unfann’d by strong desire;
Unfit for raptures, or, if raptures cheer
On some high festival of once a year,
In wild excess the vulgar breast takes fire,
  
225
Till, buried in debauch, the bliss expire.

 
But not their joys alone thus coarsely flow:
Their morals, like their pleasures, are but low,
For, as refinement stops, from sire to son
Unalter’d, unimprov’d, the manners run;
  
230
And love’s and friendship’s finely pointed dart
Fall blunted from each indurated heart.
Some sterner virtues o’er the mountain’s breast
May sit, like falcons cow’ring on the nest;
But all the gentler morals, such as play
  
235
Through life’s more cultur’d walks, and charm the way,
These, far dispers’d, on timorous pinions fly,
To sport and flutter in a kinder sky.