The Traveller
- Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,
- Or by the lazy Scheld, 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:
- Wheree'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:
- Blest be the spot, where cheerful guests retire
- To pause from toil, and trim their ev'ning fire;
- Blest that abode, where want and pain repair,
- And every stranger finds a ready chair;
- Blest be those feasts with simple plenty crown'd,
- Where all the ruddy family round
- 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!
- 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.
- E'en 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 a hundred realms appear;
- Lakes, forests, cities, plains extending wide,
- 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?
- 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 splendor crown'd;
- Ye fields, where summer spread profusion round,
- Ye lakes, whose vessels catch the gusty 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!
- 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 wand'ring hope at rest,
- May gather bliss to see my fellows blest.
- But where to find that happiest spot below
- Who can direct, when all pretend to know?
- The shudd'ring 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.
- 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 blessing even.
- Nature, a mother kind alike to all,
- Still grants her bliss at Labor'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,
- These rocks by custom turn to beds of down.
- From art more various are the blessings sent,
- Wealth, commerce, honor, 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 honor sinks where commerce long prevails.
- Hence every state, to one loved blessing prone,
- Conforms and models life to that alone.
- Each to the favorite happiness attends,
- And spurns the plan that aims at other ends;
- 'Till carried to excess in each domain,
- This favorite 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 mold'ring tops between
- With venerable grandeur mark the scene.
- Could Nature's bounty satisfy the breast,
- The sons of Italy were surely blest:
- 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.
- 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 e'en in penance planning sins anew.
- 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,
- 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;
- 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
- By arts, the splendid wrecks of former pride:
- From these the feeble heart and long fall'n mind
- An easy compensation seems 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, 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
- 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, and soldier and his sword;
- 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,
- 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 vent'rous 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 labor 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.
- Thus every good his native wilds impart,
- Imprints the patriot passion on his heart;
- 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,
- 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 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 redrest.
- Hence 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 smold'ring fire,
- 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, unimproved 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 cow'ring 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 falt'ring still,
- But mock'd all tune, and marr'd the dancer's 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,