And fungous fruits of earth, regales the sense
With luxury of unexpected sweets.
There often wanders one, whom better days Saw better clad, in cloak of fattin trimm'd With lace, and hat with fplendid ribband bound. A serving-maid was she, and fell in love With one who left her, went to sea and died. Her fancy followed him through foaming waves To distant shores, and she would fit and weep At what a sailor fuffers ; fancy too Delusive most where warmest wishes are, Would oft anticipate his glad return, 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 The dreary waste; there spends the livelong day, And there, unless when charity forbids, The livelong night. A tatter'd apron hides, Worn as a cloak, and hardly hides a gown
More
More tatter'd still; and both but ill conceal
A bosom heaved with never-ceasing sighs.
She begs an idle pin of all she meets,
And hoards them in her sleeve; but needful food,
Though press’d with hunger oft, or comelier cloaths,
Though pinch'd with cold, asks never.-Kate is craz’d.
I see a column of flow-rising smoke
O’ertop the lofty wood that skirts the wild.
A vagabond and useless tribe there eat
Their miserable meal. A kettle nung
Between two poles upon a stick transverse,
Receives the morsel ; flesh obscene of dog,
Or vermin, or at best, of cock purloin'd
From his accustom’d perch. Hard-faring race !
They pick their fuel out of ev'ry hedge,
Which kindled with dry leaves, just saves unquench'd
The spark of life. The sportive wind blows wide
Their Aute’ring rags, and Thows a tawny skin,
The vellum of the pedigree they claim.
Great
Great skill have they in palmistry, and more
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 caft
In human mould, should brutalize by choice
His nature, and though capable of arts
By which the world might profit and himself,
Self-banish'd from society, prefer
Such squalid sloth to honorable toil.
j
Yet even these, though feigning sickness of
They swathe the forehead, drag the limping limb
And vex their Aesh with artificial fores,
Can change their whine into a mirthful note
When safe occafion offers, and with dance
And music of the bladder and the bag
Beguile their woes and make the woods resound.
Such health and gaiety of heart enjoy
The houseless rovers of the fylvan world;
And breathing wholesome air, and wand'ring much,
Need
Need other phyfic none to heal th' effects
Of loathsome diet, penury, and cold.
Bleft he, though undistinguish'd from the crowd
By wealth or dignity, who dwells secure
Where man, by nature fierce, has laid aside
His fierceness, having learnt, though now to learn,
The manners and the arts of civil life.
His wants, indeed, are many; but fupply
Is obvious; placed within the easy reach
Of temp’rate wishes and industrious hands.
Here virtue thrives as in her
proper soil ;
Not rude and surly, and beset with thorns,
And terrible to fight, as when she springs,
(If e'er she spring spontaneous) in remote
And barb'rous climes, where violence prevails,
And strength is.lord of all; but gentle, kind,
By culture tam’d, by liberty refreshid,
And all her fruits by radiant truth matur'd.
War and the chace engross the savage whole,
War
War follow'd for revenge, or to supplant
The envied tenants of fome happier spot,
The chace for sustenance, precarious trust!
His hard condition with severe constraint
Binds all his faculties, forbids all growth
Of wisdom, proves a school in which he learns
Sly circumvention, unrelenting hate,
Mean self-attachment, and scarce aught beside.
Thus fare the liv'ring natives of the north,
And thus the rangers of the western world
Where it advances far into the deep,
Towards th’ Antarctic. Ev'n the favor'd ises
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 eafe.
These therefore I can pity, placed remote
From all that science traces, art invents,
Or inspiration teaches; and inclosed
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