One of its great, in splendid mansion dwelt;
Was robed in silk and gold; and every day
Fared sumptuously; was titled, honored, served.
Thousands his nod awaited, and his will
For law received. Whole provinces his march
Attended, and his chariot drew, or on
Their shoulders bore aloft the precious man.
Millions, abased, fell prostrate at his feet;
And millions more thundered adoring praise.
As far as eye could reach, he called the land
His own, and added yearly to his fields.
Like tree that of the soil took healthy root,
He grew on every side, and towered on high,
And over half a nation shadowing wide,
He spread his ample boughs. Air, earth, and sea,
Nature entire, the brute, and rational,
To please him ministered, and vied among
Themselves who most should his desires prevent,
Watching the moving of his rising thoughts
Attentively, and hasting to fulfil.
His palace rose and kissed the gorgeous clouds :
Streams bent their music to his will, trees sprung,
The native waste put on luxuriant robes;
And plans of happy cottages cast out
Their tenants, and became a hunting-field.
Before him bowed the distant isles, with fruits
And spices rare; the South her treasures brought;
The East and West sent; and the frigid North
Came with her offerings of glossy furs.
Musicians soothed his ear with airs select;
Beauty held out her arms; and every man
Of cunning skill, and curious device,
And endless multitudes of liveried wights,
His pleasure waited with obsequious look.
And when the wants of nature were supplied,
And common-place extravagances filled
Beyond their asking, and caprice itself,
In all its zig-zag appetites, gorged full,
The man new wants and new expenses planned;
Nor planned alone. Wise, learned, sober men,
Of cogitation deep, took up his case,
And planned for him new modes of folly wild; Contrived new wishes, wants, and wondrous
Of spending with despatch; yet, after all,
His fields extended still, his riches grew;
And what seemed splendor infinite, increased.
So lavishly upon a single man
Did Providenee his bounties daily shower.
Turn now thy eye and look on Poverty;
Look on the lowest of her ragged sons.
We find him by the way, sitting in dust;
He has no bread to eat, no tongue to ask,
No limbs to walk, no home, no house, no friend. Observe his goblin cheek, his wretched eye; See how his hand, if any hand he has, Involuntary opens, and trembles forth,
As comes the traveller's foot; and hear his groan,
His long and lamentable groan, announce
The want that gnaws within. Severely now
The sun scorches and burns his old bald head ;
The frost now glues him to the chilly earth.
On him hail, rain, and tempest rudely beat;
And all the winds of heaven, in jocular mood,
Sport with his withered rags, that, tossed about,
Display his nakedness to passers by,
And grievously burlesque the human form.
Observe him yet more narrowly. His limbs,
With palsy shaken, about him blasted lie,
And all his flesh is full of putrid sores
And noisome wounds, his bones of racking
Strange vesture this for an immortal soul!
Strange retinue to wait a lord of earth!
It seems as Nature, in some surly mood,
After debate and musing long, had tried
How vile and miserable thing her hand
Could fabricate, then made this meagre man,
A sight so full of perfect misery,
That passengers their faces turned away,
And hasted to be gone; and delicate
And tender women took another path.
FAR away from the hill-side, the lake, and the hamlet,
The rock, and the brook, and yon meadow so
From the footpath that winds by the side of the streamlet;
From his hut, and the grave of his friend, far
He is gone where the footsteps of men never ven
Where the glooms of the wild-tangled forest are
Where no beam of the sun or the sweet moon has entered,
No bloodhound has roused up the deer with his
Light be the heart of the poor lonely wanderer; Firm be his step through each wearisome mileFar from the cruel man, far from the plunderer,
Far from the track of the mean and the vile.
|