The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith. Оливер Голдсмит

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      Contrasted faults through all his manner 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,

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      page 10

      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, repress'd 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 Caesars 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

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      page 11

      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, e'en 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 vent'rous plough-share 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

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      page 12

      And e'en 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 СКАЧАТЬ