THE POEMS
OF
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
[Illustration:
THE
POEMS
OF
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
]
[Illustration]
THE POEMS
OF
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
EDITED BY
ROBERT ARIS WILLMOTT,
AUTHOR OF THE “PLEASURES OF LITERATURE,”
“SUMMER TIME IN THE COUNTRY,”
ETC., ETC.
A NEW EDITION,
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
BIRKET FOSTER AND H. N. HUMPHREYS,
PRINTED IN COLOURS BY EDMUND EVANS.
[Illustration]
LONDON AND NEW YORK
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS.
1877.
[Illustration:
EDMUND EVANS
ENGRAVER & PRINTER]
[Illustration: PREFACE]
Oliver Goldsmith, the fifth child of Charles and Ann Goldsmith,
was born at Pallas, a hamlet of the parish of Forney, county of
Longford, Ireland, November 10th, 1728. His father, the “Preacher”
of the “Deserted Village,” having been presented to the Rectory of
Kilkenny-West, about the year 1730, removed his family to Lissoy, the
“Auburn” of the Poet. The “modest mansion” is a ruin, or, by this time,
has quite disappeared. His first schoolmaster is described, by one
who remembered him, as a man “stern to view,” in whose “morning face”
the disasters of the day might be easily read. Goldsmith made small
progress under the ferule of Paddy Burns, and, after being for some
time a pupil in the diocesan school of Elphin, he was placed with a
competent teacher at Athlone, where he remained two years. He was then
transferred to the care of Mr. Hughes, vicar of Shruel, who treated him
with kindness, and whom he always mentioned with respect and gratitude.
His eldest sister has given a specimen of her brother’s early and ready
humour. A large company of young people had assembled in his uncle’s
house, at Elphin, and Oliver, then nine years old, was desired to dance
a hornpipe, under very unfavourable circumstances, for his figure
was short and thick, and the marks of recent small-pox were still
conspicuous. A young man, who played the violin, compared him to Æsop
dancing; but Oliver, stopping short in the performance, immediately
disabled his satirist with a sharp epigram:--
“Our herald hath proclaim’d this saying,
See Æsop dancing, and his monkey playing.”
On the 11th of June, 1745, he was admitted a Sizar of Trinity College,
Dublin--a fact which denoted a considerable proficiency in classical
learning; but he was unfortunate in his tutor, who deserved, and has
won, the title of “Savage;” and, perhaps, the promise of Oliver was
blighted by his severity. He neglected his studies, and was seen
“perpetually lounging about the college gates.” We find him elected,
June 15th, 1747, to an Exhibition, on the foundation of Erasmus Smith,
obtaining a premium at the Christmas examination, and, after a delay
of two years, taking his Bachelor’s degree, February 27th, 1750. His
father died in 1747, but he found a second parent in the Rev Thomas
Contarine, who was descended from a noble ancestry in Venice, and had
been a contemporary and friend of Berkeley. The relatives of the poet
now advised him to “go into orders,” and yielding to the persuasion
of Mr. Contarine, he presented himself before the Bishop of Elphin,
and was rejected. Tradition ascribes the failure to his uncanonical
costume, and the episcopal dislike of scarlet breeches.
His kind friends might now, as he afterwards wrote, be perfectly
satisfied that he was undone; but they did not abandon him. He was
enabled to proceed to Edinburgh, towards the end of 1752, where he
attended the lectures of Monro and the other Medical Professors.
Scotland did not please him. “Shall I tire you,” he wrote to a friend,
“with a description of this unfruitful country, where I must lead you
over their hills all brown with heath, or their valleys scarcely able
to feed a rabbit? Man alone seems to be the only creature who has
arrived to the natural size in this poor soil.”
His design of completing his studies at Leyden was nearly frustrated
by an act of generous imprudence, from which two college friends set
him free. From Leyden, in the April or May of 1754, he sent a letter
to Mr. Contarine, containing an account of his journey, and some
lively sketches of the “downright Hollander,” with lank hair, laced
hat, no coat, and seven waistcoats, the lady with her portable stove,
the lugubrious Harlequin, and the domestic interior, which reminded
him of a magnificent Egyptian temple dedicated to an ox. He remained
in Leyden nearly a year, deriving small benefit from the instruction
of the Professors, who, with the exception of Gaubius, the teacher of
Chemistry, were as indolent as himself. Meanwhile, the necessaries of
life were costly, and the attractions of the gaming-table proved to
be overpowering and ruinous. At length, having emptied his purse, and
reduced his wardrobe to a single shirt, he boldly resolved to make the
tour of Europe. This characteristic chapter of the Poet’s history is
yet to be written, if his lost letters should ever be recovered. The
interesting and copious narrative which he communicated to Dr. Radcliff
is known to have been destroyed by fire.
He commenced his travels about February, 1755. “A good voice,” adopting
his own account of an earlier adventurer, “and a trifling skill
in music, were the only finances he had to support an undertaking
so extensive.” Thus he journeyed, and at night sang at the doors
of peasants’ houses, to get himself a lodging. Once or twice, he
“attempted to play to people of fashion,” but they despised his
performance, and never rewarded him even with a trifle. We are told
by Bishop Percy, that he reached Padua, and visited all the northern
parts of Italy, returning, on foot, through France, and landing at
Dover, about the beginning of the war, in 1756. We may believe his own
assurance, that he fought his way homewards, examining mankind with
near eyes, and seeing both sides of the picture.
He appeared in London, without means or interest. England, he
complained, was a country, where being born an Irishman was sufficient
to keep a man unemployed. With much difficulty he obtained the
situation of usher at a school. Johnson did not remember the occupation
with a fiercer disgust; and the redolent French teacher, papering his
curls at night, was a frequent spectre of his memory. A migration from
the school-room to the chemist’s shop slightly improved his condition.
Better days were coming. By the aid of an Edinburgh acquaintance,
Dr. Sleigh, and other friends, he was “set up” as a practitioner at
Bankside, Southwark, where, in his pleasant confession, he got plenty
of patients, but no fees. A physician, Dr. Farr, who had known him
in Scotland, thus describes his appearance:--“He called upon me one
morning, before I was up, and, on entering the room, I recognized my
old acquaintance, dressed in a rusty, full-trimmed black suit, with
his pockets full of papers, which instantly reminded me of the poet
in Garrick’s farce of ‘Lethe.’ On this occasion he read portions of
a ‘Tragedy,’ and talked of a journey to decipher the inscriptions on
the Written Mountains.” In later days, when writing an “Essay on the
advantages to be derived from sending a judicious traveller into Asia,”
Goldsmith professed to feel the difficulty of choosing a proper person
for such an enterprise, and indicated the qualifications demanded:--“He
should be a man of a philosophical turn, one apt to deduce consequences
of general utility from particular occurrences--neither swollen with
pride, nor hardened by prejudice--neither wedded to one particular
system, nor instructed only in one particular science--neither wholly a
botanist, nor wholly an antiquarian; his mind should be tinctured with
miscellaneous knowledge, and his manners humanized by an intercourse
with men. He should be, in some measure, an enthusiast to the design;
fond of travelling, from a rapid imagination and an innate love of
change; furnished with a body capable of sustaining every fatigue, and
a heart not easily terrified at danger.”
With the year 1757, the prospects of Goldsmith brightened, and the
papers which filled the pockets of the rusty black coat began to
get abroad. He wrote several articles for the “Monthly Review,”
translated the “Mémoires d’un Protestant,” and composed his “Enquiry
into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.” The object of
the work was special. He had obtained the appointment of physician to
a factory on the coast of Coromandel, and was providing funds for the
voyage. A considerable sum was needed. The Company’s warrant cost ten
pounds, and the passage and equipment required one hundred and thirty
pounds in addition; but the emoluments were expected to be large. The
salary was one hundred pounds; the average returns of the general
practice amounted to a thousand; there was an opening for commercial
enterprise, and invested money brought twenty per cent. These were
flattering inducements; but time deadened their charm, and he shrank
from so distant a banishment, and beginning life again at the age of
thirty-one. Eight years of anxiety and trial had done their work on his
face and temper. His picture of himself was most discouraging. He had
“contracted a hesitating, disagreeable manner of speaking, and a visage
that looked ill-nature itself.” Home news deepened his melancholy, for
his mother was almost blind.
The “Enquiry” appeared, without the Author’s name, April, 1759--a
small volume, price half-a-crown; and in the autumn of the same year,
the commencement of a weekly paper, called “The Bee,” afforded him an
opportunity of showing his skill as an Editor. His plan was to “rove
from flower to flower, with seeming inattention, but concealed choice,
expatiate over all the beauties of the season, and make his industry
his amusement.” The “Bee” expired with its eighth number, but he
was more successful in his next enterprise. To the “Public Ledger,”
of which the first number appeared January 12th, 1760, Goldsmith
contributed one hundred and twenty-three letters, which were afterwards
collected as the “Citizen of the World.”
The last day of May, 1761, was memorable in his life, as witnessing
the commencement of his intimacy with Johnson. His miscellaneous
productions in 1762-4 included a “Life of Richard Nash, of Bath,” an
“Introduction to Natural History,” an “Abridgment of Plutarch,” a
“History of England,” and the “Traveller.” For the poem he received
only twenty guineas, but the applause of its readers was loud and
unanimous. “I was glad,” said Sir Joshua, “to hear Sir Charles Fox
say it was one of the finest poems in the English language.” A fourth
edition was required within eight months, and the Author lived to see
the ninth. In 1764, he wrote the “Captivity,” for which the sum of ten
guineas was paid by Dodsley.
Poetry kept him poor, and we still see him writing for bread in a
garret, and expecting to be “dunned for a milk score.” However, he
cleared and warmed the future with the hopefulness of his genial
nature, and comforted himself by the recollection that while Addison
wrote the “Campaign” in a third storey, he had only got to the second.
Reckless improvidence multiplied his difficulties. “Those who knew
him,” he told a correspondent, “knew his principles to differ from
those of the rest of mankind, and while none regarded the interest of
his friend more, none regarded his own less.”
Among his disappointments, at this period, are to be numbered an
unsuccessful application for a Gresham Lectureship, and Garrick’s
refusal of the “Good-Natured Man.” But Colman put the drama on the
stage, January 29th, 1768, and the Professorship of Ancient History
in the Royal Academy was agreeably bestowed. His “Roman History,”
published in 1769, was received with favour; and in the May of 1770,
the “Deserted Village” appeared.
In that year, Gray travelled through a part of England and South Wales,
and Mr. Norton Nichols was with him at Malvern when he received the
new poem, which he desired his friend to read to him. He listened with
fixed attention, and soon exclaimed, “This man is a Poet.” In twelve
days the poem was reprinted, and before the 5th of August the public
admiration exhausted a fifth impression. His comedy, the “Mistakes of
a Night” (represented March 15th, 1773), obtained a success, of its
kind, not inferior. Johnson said that it answered the great end of a
comedy--“making an audience merry.” For an impertinent letter in the
“London Packet,” Goldsmith caned the editor; having found, was the
remark of a friend, a new pleasure, for he believed that it was the
“first time he had beat,” though “he may have been beaten before.”
I may add, that the Ballad of “Edwin and Angelina,” having been
privately printed for the amusement of the Countess of Northumberland,
was inserted in the “Vicar of Wakefield,” when that charming fiction
first came out, March 27th, 1766, to delight the young by its
adventures, and the old by its wisdom. For two years the manuscript had
lain in the desk of the Publisher, until the fame of the “Traveller”
encouraged him to send it to the press.
He was now engaged in the compilation of the “History of the Earth and
Animated Nature,” for which he was to receive eight hundred guineas;
and about this time, according to Percy, he wrote “the ‘Haunch of
Venison,’ ‘Retaliation,’ and some other little sportive sallies, which
were not printed until after his death.” Mr. Peter Cunningham[1] has,
for the first time, related the true story of “Retaliation,” in the
original words of Garrick:--A party of friends, at the St. James’s
Coffee House, were diverting themselves with the peculiar oddities
of Goldsmith, who insisted upon trying his epigrammatic powers with
Garrick. Each was to write the other’s epitaph. Garrick immediately
spoke the following lines:--
“Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness call’d Noll,
Who wrote like an angel, and talk’d like poor Poll.”
The company laughed, and Goldsmith grew serious; he went to work, and
some weeks after produced “Retaliation,” which was not written in
anger, but with the utmost good humour.
His path seemed now to be winding out of gloom into the full
sunlight,--but, of a sudden, there rose up in it the “Shadow feared
of man.” He was busy with projects, and had prepared a “Prospectus of
an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Science,” when a complaint, from
which he had previously suffered, returned with extreme severity. His
unskilful treatment of the disorder was aggravated by the agitation of
his mind, and he gradually sank, until Monday, April 4th, 1774, when
death released him, in the forty-sixth year of his age. His remains
were interred in the burial-ground of the Temple; Nollekens carved
his profile in marble, and Johnson wrote a Latin inscription for the
monument, which was erected in the south transept of Westminster
Abbey. The epitaph is thus given in English:--
OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH--
Poet, Naturalist, and Historian,
who left scarcely any style of writing
untouched,
and touched nothing that he did not adorn;
of all the passions,
whether smiles were to be moved,
or tears,
a powerful yet gentle master;
in genius, sublime, lively, versatile;
in style, elevated, clear, elegant--
the love of companions,
the fidelity of friends,
and the veneration of readers,
have by this monument honoured the memory.
He was born in Ireland,
at a place called Pallas,
[in the parish] of Forney, [and county] of Longford,
On the 29th Nov., 1731;[2]
educated at [the university of] Dublin;
and died in London,
4th April, 1774.
Goldsmith, in the judgment of a friendly, but severe observer, always
seemed to do best that which he was doing. Does he write History? He
tells shortly, and with a pleasing simplicity of narrative, all that we
want to know. Does he write Essays? He clothes familiar wisdom with an
easy and elegant diction, of which the real difficulty is only known
by those who seek to obtain it. Does he write the story of Animated
Nature? He makes it “amusing as a Persian tale.” Does he write a Novel?
Dr. Primrose sits in our chimney-corner to celebrate his biographer.
Does he write Comedy? Laughter “holds both its sides” at the Incendiary
Letter to “Muster Croaker.” Does he write Poetry? The big tears on the
rugged face of Johnson bear witness to its tenderness, dignity, and
truth. The naturalness of the Author pervaded the Man. Whose vanity
was so transparent, and yet so harmless? He honestly believed himself
qualified to explore Asia, and would have undertaken to read, at sight,
the Manuscripts of Mount Athos. His tailor’s bill is a commentary on
his life. But under the bloom-coloured coat beat the large heart of a
kindly and generous nature, throwing up the spontaneous and abundant
fruitfulness of charity to the needy, and sympathy with all. Thieves
had only to plunder a stranger, to make him a neighbour. In reading
Goldsmith, or reading of him, the touch of nature changes us into his
kindred, and we do not more admire the Writer, than we love the Brother.
ST. CATHERINE’S,
_September 15th, 1858_.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Miscellaneous Prose Works of Goldsmith, vol. i., p. 79.
[2] “The year of Dr. Goldsmith’s birth had been universally mistaken,
till his family, some time after his death, furnished correct
information of the circumstance.”--PERCY.
[Illustration: HERE LIES OLIVER GOLDSMITH]
[Illustration: CONTENTS]
PAGE
THE TRAVELLER 1
THE DESERTED VILLAGE 29
THE HERMIT 57
THE CAPTIVITY 67
THE HAUNCH OF VENISON 85
RETALIATION 91
THE DOUBLE TRANSFORMATION 99
THE GIFT TO IRIS 104
THE LOGICIANS REFUTED 105
AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF A MAD DOG 108
THRENODIA AUGUSTALIS 110
A NEW SIMILE 122
ON A BEAUTIFUL YOUTH STRUCK BLIND BY LIGHTNING 125
STANZAS ON WOMAN 126
TRANSLATION FROM SCARRÒN 126
STANZAS ON THE TAKING OF QUEBEC 127
EPITAPH ON EDWARD PURDON 128
TRANSLATION OF A SOUTH AMERICAN ODE 128
EPITAPH ON THOMAS PARNELL 129
DESCRIPTION OF AN AUTHOR’S BED-CHAMBER 130
SONG, FROM THE COMEDY OF “SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER” 131
ANSWER TO AN INVITATION TO DINNER. 133
SONG, INTENDED TO HAVE BEEN SUNG IN “SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER” 135
FROM THE LATIN OF VIDA 135
AN ELEGY ON MRS. MARY BLAIZE 136
ANSWER TO AN INVITATION TO PASS THE CHRISTMAS AT BARTON 138
ON SEEING A LADY PERFORM A CERTAIN CHARACTER 141
BIRDS 142
PROLOGUE WRITTEN AND SPOKEN BY THE POET LABERIUS 143
PROLOGUE TO “ZOBEIDE” 144
EPILOGUE TO “THE SISTER” 146
EPILOGUE INTENDED FOR “SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER” 148
ANOTHER INTENDED EPILOGUE 153
EPILOGUE TO “SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER” 155
EPILOGUE TO “THE GOOD-NATURED MAN” 157
ON THE DEATH OF THE RIGHT HON. ---- 159
EPILOGUE WRITTEN FOR MR. CHARLES LEE LEWES 163
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATIONS]
ENGRAVED BY EDMUND EVANS,
FROM DRAWINGS BY BIRKET FOSTER.
MILL AT LISSOY (_Frontispiece_).
PAGE
GOLDSMITH’S TOMB IN THE TEMPLE CHURCHYARD xvii
THE TRAVELLER.
_Or where Campania’s plain forsaken lies_ 5
_Bless’d that abode, where want and pain repair_ 6
_Even now, where Alpine solitudes ascend_ 7
_Ye lakes, whose vessels catch the busy gale_ 8
_The shuddering tenant of the frigid zone_ 9
_Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave_ 10
_While oft some temple’s mouldering tops between_ 12
_In florid beauty groves and fields appear_ 13
_A mistress or a saint in every grove_ 14
_Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansions tread_ 16
_With patient angle trolls the finny deep_ 17
_How often have I led thy sportive choir_ 18
_The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail_ 21
_There gentle music melts on every spray_ 24
_Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around_ 27
THE DESERTED VILLAGE.
_The never-failing brook, the busy mill_ 32
_The shelter’d cot, the cultivated farm_ 33
_And many a gambol frolick’d o’er the ground_ 34
_The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest_ 35
_Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew_ 37
_The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung_ 38
_And fill’d each pause the nightingale had made_ 39
_To pick her wintry faggot from the thorn_ 40
_The village preacher’s modest mansion rose_ 41
_Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride_ 42
_At church, with meek and unaffected grace_ 43
_Low lies that house, where nut-brown draughts inspir’d_ 45
_No more the farmer’s news, the barber’s tale_ 45
_Space for his lake, his park’s extended bounds_ 48
_Where the poor houseless, shivering female lies_ 50
_Her modest looks the cottage might adorn_ 51
_Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey_ 52
_The cooling brook, the grassy-vested green_ 53
_And left a lover’s for a father’s arms_ 54
_Downward they move, a melancholy band_ 56
THE HERMIT.
_Then turn, to-night, and freely share whate’er my cell bestows_ 58
_The hermit trimm’d his little fire, and cheer’d his pensive
guest_ 61
_And when, beside me in the dale; he caroll’d lays of love_ 64
THE CAPTIVITY.
_Ye hills of Lebanon, with cedars crown’d_ 69
_Fierce is the tempest rolling along the furrow’d main_ 74
_As panting flies the hunted hind, where brooks refreshing stray_ 80
_O Babylon! how art thou fall’n_ 83
THE HAUNCH OF VENISON 90
THE DOUBLE TRANSFORMATION 102
AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF A MAD DOG 109
THRENODIA AUGUSTALIS 116
ON A BEAUTIFUL YOUTH STRUCK BLIND BY LIGHTNING 125
SONG--“THE THREE PIGEONS” 130
BIRDS 142
EPILOGUE WRITTEN FOR MR. CHARLES LEE LEWES 162
_The Ornamental Illustrations designed by_ H. NOEL HUMPHREYS
[Illustration: THE TRAVELLER]
DEDICATION.
TO THE REV. HENRY GOLDSMITH.
DEAR SIR,
I am sensible that the friendship between us can acquire no new force
from the ceremonies of a dedication; and perhaps it demands an excuse
thus to prefix your name to my attempts, which you decline giving with
your own. But as a part of this poem was formerly written to you from
Switzerland, the whole can now, with propriety, be only inscribed to
you. It will also throw a light upon many parts of it, when the reader
understands that it is addressed to a man who, despising fame and
fortune, has retired early to happiness and obscurity with an income of
forty pounds a year.
I now perceive, my dear brother, the wisdom of your humble choice. You
have entered upon a sacred office, where the harvest is great, and the
labourers are but few; while you have left the field of ambition, where
the labourers are many, and the harvest not worth carrying away. But
of all kinds of ambition--what from the refinement of the times, from
different systems of criticism, and from the divisions of party--that
which pursues poetical fame is the wildest.
Poetry makes a principal amusement among unpolished nations; but in
a country verging to the extremes of refinement, Painting and Music
come in for a share. As these offer the feeble mind a less laborious
entertainment, they at first rival Poetry, and at length supplant her:
they engross all that favour once shown to her; and, though but younger
sisters, seize upon the elder’s birthright.
Yet, however this art may be neglected by the powerful, it is still in
greater danger from the mistaken efforts of the learned to improve it.
What criticisms have we not heard of late in favour of blank verse and
pindaric odes, choruses, anapests, and iambics, alliterative care and
happy negligence! Every absurdity has now a champion to defend it; and
as he is generally much in the wrong, so he has always much to say--for
error is ever talkative.
But there is an enemy to this art still more dangerous; I mean party.
Party entirely distorts the judgment and destroys the taste. When the
mind is once infected with this disease, it can only find pleasure in
what contributes to increase the distemper. Like the tiger, that seldom
desists from pursuing man after having once preyed upon human flesh,
the reader who has once gratified his appetite with calumny, makes ever
after the most agreeable feast upon murdered reputation. Such readers
generally admire some half-witted thing, who wants to be thought a bold
man, having lost the character of a wise one. Him they dignify with the
name of poet: his tawdry lampoons are called satires; his turbulence is
said to be force, and his frenzy fire.
What reception a poem may find, which has neither abuse, party, nor
blank verse to support it, I cannot tell; nor am I solicitous to know.
My aims are right. Without espousing the cause of any party, I have
attempted to moderate the rage of all. I have endeavoured to show that
there may be equal happiness in states that are differently governed
from our own; that every state has a particular principle of happiness;
and that this principle in each may be carried to a mischievous excess.
There are few can judge better than yourself how far these positions
are illustrated in this poem.
I am, dear Sir,
Your most affectionate brother,
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
[Illustration: THE TRAVELLER]
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,
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.
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 evening fire;
Bless’d that abode, where want and pain repair,
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,
Or press the bashful stranger to his food,
And learn the luxury of doing good.
[Illustration]
But me, not destin’d such delights to share,
My prime of life in wandering spent and care,
Impell’d with steps unceasing to pursue
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.
[Illustration]
Even now, where Alpine solitudes ascend,
I sit me down a pensive hour to spend;
And plac’d on high, above the storms career,
Look downward where an hundred realms appear--
Lakes, forests, cities, plains extending wide,
The pomp of kings, the shepherd’s humbler pride.
[Illustration]
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?
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 glittering towns with wealth and splendour crown’d,
Ye fields where summer spreads profusion round,
Ye lakes whose vessels catch the busy gale,
Ye bending swains that dress the flowery vale--
For me your tributary stores combine;
Creation’s heir, the world, the world is mine!
As some lone miser, visiting his store,
Bends at his treasure, counts, recounts 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,
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,
Where my worn soul, each wandering hope at rest,
May gather bliss to see my fellows blest.
[Illustration]
But where to find that happiest spot below,
Who can direct, when all pretend to know?
The shuddering tenant of the frigid zone
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,
Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave,
And thanks his gods for all the good they gave.
[Illustration]
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,
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.
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 Idria’s cliffs as Arno’s shelvy side;
And, though the rocky-crested summits frown,
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:
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,
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:
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,
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 mouldering tops between
With venerable grandeur mark the scene.
[Illustration]
Could Nature’s bounty satisfy the breast,
The sons of Italy were surely bless’d.
Whatever fruits in different climes are found,
That proudly rise, or humbly court the ground--
Whatever blooms in torrid tracts appear,
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;
While sea-born gales their gelid wings expand,
To winnow fragrance round the smiling land.
[Illustration]
But small the bliss that sense alone bestows,
And sensual bliss is all the nation knows;
In florid beauty groves and fields appear--
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 even in penance planning sins anew.
All evils here contaminate the mind,
That opulence departed leaves behind;
For wealth was theirs--nor far remov’d the date
When commerce proudly flourish’d through the state,
At her command the palace learn’d to rise,
Again the long-fall’n column sought the skies,
The canvas glow’d beyond even 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,
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.
[Illustration]
Yet, still the loss of wealth is here supplied
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 pasteboard triumph and the cavalcade;
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,
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,
There in the ruin, heedless of the dead,
The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed;
And, wondering man could want the larger pile,
Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile.
[Illustration]
My soul, turn from them, turn we to survey
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;
No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array,
But winter lingering chills the lap of May;
No zephyr fondly sues the mountain’s breast,
But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest.
Yet still, even here, content can spread a charm,
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--
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,
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.
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,
Displays her cleanly platter on the board:
And haply too some pilgrim, thither led,
With many a tale repays the nightly bed.
[Illustration]
Thus every good his native wilds impart
Imprints the patriot passion on his heart;
And even 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,
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.
[Illustration]
Such are the charms to barren states assign’d--
Their wants but few, their wishes all confin’d;
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 redress’d.
Whence from such lands each pleasing science flies,
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:
Their level life is but a smouldering 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,
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--
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 cowering on the nest;
But all the gentler morals, such as play
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.
To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign,
I turn; and France displays her bright domain.
Gay sprightly land of mirth and social ease,
Pleas’d with thyself, whom all the world can please--
How often have I led thy sportive choir,
With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire,
Where shading elms along the margin grew,
And, freshen’d from the wave, the zephyr flew!
And haply, though my harsh touch, faltering still,
But mock’d all tune, and marr’d the dancers’ skill--
Yet would the village praise my wondrous power,
And dance, forgetful of the noontide hour.
Alike all ages: dames of ancient days
Have led their children through the mirthful maze;
And the gay grandsire, skill’d in gestic lore,
Has frisk’d beneath the burden of threescore.
So bless’d a life these thoughtless realms display;
Thus idly busy rolls their world away.
Theirs are those arts that mind to mind endear,
For honour forms the social temper here:
Honour, that praise which real merit gains,
Or even imaginary worth obtains,
Here passes current--paid from hand to hand,
It shifts, in splendid traffic, round the land;
From courts to camps, to cottages it strays,
And all are taught an avarice of praise--
They please, are pleas’d, they give to get esteem,
Till, seeming bless’d, they grow to what they seem.
But while this softer art their bliss supplies,
It gives their follies also room to rise;
For praise too dearly lov’d, or warmly sought,
Enfeebles all internal strength of thought--
And the weak soul, within itself unbless’d,
Leans for all pleasure on another’s breast.
Hence ostentation here, with tawdry art,
Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart;
Here vanity assumes her pert grimace,
And trims her robes of frieze with copper lace;
Here beggar pride defrauds her daily cheer,
To boast one splendid banquet once a year:
The mind still turns where shifting fashion draws,
Nor weighs the solid worth of self-applause.
[Illustration]
To men of other minds my fancy flies,
Embosom’d in the deep where Holland lies.
Methinks her patient sons before me stand,
Where the broad ocean leans against the land;
And, sedulous to stop the coming tide,
Lift the tall rampire’s artificial pride.
Onward, methinks, and diligently slow,
The firm connected bulwark seems to grow,
Spreads its long arms amidst the watery roar,
Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore--
While the pent ocean, rising o’er the pile,
Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile;
The slow canal, the yellow-blossom’d vale,
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail,
The crowded mart, the cultivated plain--
A new creation rescued from his reign.
Thus, while around the wave-subjected soil
Impels the native to repeated toil,
Industrious habits in each bosom reign,
And industry begets a love of gain.
Hence all the good from opulence that springs,
With all those ills superfluous treasure brings,
Are here display’d. Their much-lov’d wealth imparts
Convenience, plenty, elegance, and arts;
But view them closer, craft and fraud appear--
Even liberty itself is barter’d here.
At gold’s superior charms all freedom flies;
The needy sell it, and the rich man buys:
A land of tyrants, and a den of slaves,
Here wretches seek dishonourable graves;
And, calmly bent, to servitude conform,
Dull as their lakes that slumber in the storm.
Heavens! how unlike their Belgic sires of old--
Rough, poor, content, ungovernably bold,
War in each breast, and freedom on each brow;
How much unlike the sons of Britain now!
Fir’d at the sound, my genius spreads her wing,
And flies where Britain courts the western spring;
Where lawns extend that scorn Arcadian pride,
And brighter streams than fam’d Hydaspes glide.
There, all around, the gentlest breezes stray;
There gentle music melts on every spray;
Creation’s mildest charms are there combin’d;
Extremes are only in the master’s mind.
Stern o’er each bosom reason holds her state,
With daring aims irregularly great.
Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
I see the lords of human kind pass by,
Intent on high designs--a thoughtful band,
By forms unfashion’d, fresh from Nature’s hand,
Fierce in their native hardiness of soul,
True to imagin’d right, above control;
While even the peasant boasts these rights to scan,
And learns to venerate himself as man.
Thine, freedom, thine the blessings pictur’d here;
Thine are those charms that dazzle and endear;
Too bless’d indeed were such without alloy,
But, foster’d even by freedom, ills annoy.
That independence Britons prize too high
Keeps man from man, and breaks the social tie:
The self-dependent lordlings stand alone--
All claims that bind and sweeten life unknown.
Here, by the bonds of nature feebly held,
Minds combat minds, repelling and repell’d;
Ferments arise, imprison’d factions roar,
Repress’d ambition struggles round her shore--
Till, over-wrought, the general system feels
Its motions stopp’d, or frenzy fire the wheels.
[Illustration]
Nor this the worst. As nature’s ties decay,
As duty, love, and honour fail to sway,
Fictitious bonds, the bonds of wealth and law,
Still gather strength, and force unwilling awe.
Hence all obedience bows to these alone,
And talent sinks, and merit weeps unknown;
Till time may come, when stripp’d of all her charms,
The land of scholars, and the nurse of arms--
Where noble stems transmit the patriot flame,
Where kings have toil’d, and poets wrote for fame--
One sink of level avarice shall lie,
And scholars, soldiers, kings, unhonour’d die.
Yet think not, thus when freedom’s ills I state,
I mean to flatter kings, or court the great.
Ye powers of truth, that bid my soul aspire,
Far from my bosom drive the low desire;
And thou, fair freedom, taught alike to feel
The rabble’s rage, and tyrant’s angry steel--
Thou transitory flower, alike undone
By proud contempt, or favour’s fostering sun--
Still may thy blooms the changeful clime endure!
I only would repress them to secure;
For just experience tells, in every soil,
That those who think must govern those that toil--
And all that freedom’s highest aims can reach
Is but to lay proportion’d loads on each:
Hence, should one order disproportion’d grow,
Its double weight must ruin all below.
Oh, then, how blind to all that truth requires,
Who think it freedom when a part aspires!
Calm is my soul, nor apt to rise in arms,
Except when fast-approaching danger warms;
But, when contending chiefs blockade the throne,
Contracting regal power, to stretch their own--
When I behold a factious band agree
To call it freedom when themselves are free--
Each wanton judge new penal statutes draw,
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law--
The wealth of climes, where savage nations roam,
Pillag’d from slaves, to purchase slaves at home--
Fear, pity, justice, indignation start,
Tear off reserve, and bare my swelling heart;
Till, half a patriot, half a coward grown,
I fly from petty tyrants to the throne.
Yes, brother! curse with me that baleful hour,
When first ambition struck at regal power;
And thus, polluting honour in its source,
Gave wealth to sway the mind with double force.
Have we not seen, round Britain’s peopled shore,
Her useful sons exchang’d for useless ore?
Seen all her triumphs but destruction haste,
Like flaring tapers, brightening as they waste?
Seen opulence, her grandeur to maintain,
Lead stern depopulation in her train--
And over fields, where scatter’d hamlets rose,
In barren solitary pomp repose?
Have we not seen, at pleasure’s lordly call,
The smiling long-frequented village fall?--
Beheld the duteous son, the sire decay’d,
The modest matron, and the blushing maid,
Forc’d from their homes, a melancholy train,
To traverse climes beyond the western main--
Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,[3]
And Niagara stuns with thundering sound?
[Illustration]
Even now, perhaps, as there some pilgrim strays
Through tangled forests, and through dangerous ways,
Where beasts with man divided empire claim,
And the brown Indian marks with murderous aim--
There, while above the giddy tempest flies,
And all around distressful yells arise--
The pensive exile, bending with his woe,
To stop too fearful, and too faint to go,
Casts a long look where England’s glories shine,
And bids his bosom sympathize with mine.
Vain, very vain, my weary search to find
That bliss which only centres in the mind.
Why have I stray’d from pleasure and repose,
To seek a good each government bestows?
In every government, though terrors reign,
Though tyrant-kings or tyrant-laws restrain,
How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!
Still to ourselves in every place consign’d,
Our own felicity we make or find:
With secret course, which no loud storms annoy,
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy;
The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel,
Zeck’s iron crown, and Damiens’ bed of steel,[4]
To men remote from power but rarely known--
Leave reason, faith, and conscience, all our own.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[3] The Onandago, or Oneida, a lake of the State of New York, which
extends westward about twenty miles, where its outlet, the river of
Onandago, runs into Lake Ontario, at Oswego, a town with a population,
in 1853, of above 5,000.
[4] George and Luke Zeck headed an insurrection in Hungary, A.D. 1514,
and George was punished by having a red-hot iron crown placed on his
head. Robert François Damiens was an enthusiast who attempted to stab
Louis XV. of France, Jan. 5, 1757. Being seized and examined, he said
he did not intend to kill the king; and this statement was in some
measure borne out by his knife having two blades, of which he used the
shorter. He was condemned to be broken alive by horses, having been
previously tortured.
[Illustration:
THE
DESERTED
VILLAGE
]
DEDICATION.
TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.
DEAR SIR,
I can have no expectation, in an address of this kind, either to add
to your reputation or to establish my own. You can gain nothing from
my admiration, as I am ignorant of that art in which you are said to
excel; and I may lose much by the severity of your judgment, as few
have a juster taste in poetry than you. Setting interest therefore
aside, to which I never paid much attention, I must be indulged at
present in following my affections. The only dedication I ever made was
to my brother, because I loved him better than most other men. He is
since dead. Permit me to inscribe this poem to you.
How far you may be pleased with the versification and mere mechanical
parts of this attempt, I do not pretend to inquire: but I know you will
object--and indeed several of our best and wisest friends concur in
the opinion--that the depopulation it deplores is nowhere to be seen,
and the disorders it laments are only to be found in the poet’s own
imagination. To this I can scarce make any other answer, than that I
sincerely believe what I have written; that I have taken all possible
pains in my country excursions, for these four or five years past, to
be certain of what I allege; and that all my views and inquiries have
led me to believe those miseries real, which I here attempt to display.
But this is not the place to enter into an inquiry, whether the country
be depopulating or not; the discussion would take up much room, and I
should prove myself, at best, but an indifferent politician to tire the
reader with a long preface, when I want his unfatigued attention to a
long poem.
In regretting the depopulation of the country, I inveigh against the
increase of our luxuries; and here also I expect the shout of modern
politicians against me. For twenty or thirty years past, it has
been the fashion to consider luxury as one of the greatest national
advantages, and all the wisdom of antiquity, in that particular, as
erroneous. Still, however, I must remain a professed ancient on that
head, and continue to think those luxuries prejudicial to states, by
which so many vices are introduced, and so many kingdoms have been
undone. Indeed, so much has been poured out of late on the other side
of the question, that, merely for the sake of novelty and variety, one
would sometimes wish to be in the right.
I am, dear Sir,
Your sincere friend and ardent admirer,
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
[Illustration: THE DESERTED VILLAGE]