Receives the morsel-flesh obscene of dog,
Or vermin, or at best of cock purloined

From his accustomed perch. Hard-faring race!
They pick their fuel out of every hedge,

Which, kindled with dry leaves, just saves unquenched

The spark of life. The sportive wind blows wide
Their fluttering rags, and shows a tawny skin,
The vellum of the pedigree they claim.
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 cast
In human mould, should brutalize by choice
His nature; and, though capable of arts,
By which the world might profit, and himself,
Self-banished from society, prefer

Such squalid sloth to honourable toil!

Yet even these, though feigning sickness oft

They swathe the forehead, drag the limping limb, And vex their flesh with artificial sores,

Can change their whine into a mirthful note,

When safe occasion 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 sylvan world;

And, breathing wholesome air, and wandering much, Need other physic none to heal the effects

Of loathsome diet, penury, and cold.

Blest he, though undistinguished from the crowd By wealth or dignity, who dwells secure, Where man, by nature fierce, has laid aside His fierceness, having learnt, though slow to learn, The manners and the arts of civil life. His wants indeed are many; but supply Is obvious, placed within the easy reach Of temperate wishes and industrious hands, Here virtue thrives as in her proper soil; Not rude and surly, and beset with thorns, And terrible to sight, as when she springs (If ever she spring spontaneous) in remote And barbarous climes, where violence prevails, And strength is lord of all; but gentle, kind, By culture tamed, by liberty refreshed, And all her fruits by radiant truth matured. War and the chase engross the savage whole; War followed for revenge, or to supplant The envied tenants of some happier spot: The chase 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 shivering natives of the north,

And thus the rangers of the western world,
Where it advances far into the deep,

Towards the Antarctic. Even the favoured isles
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 ease.
These therefore I can pity, placed remote
From all, that science traces, art invents.
Or inspiration teaches; and enclosed
In boundless oceans never to be passed
By navigators uninformed as they,

Or ploughed perhaps by British bark again.
But far beyond the rest, and with most cause,
Thee, gentle savage! whom no love of thee
Or thine, but curiosity perhaps,

*

Or else vain glory, prompted us to draw
Forth from thy native bowers to show thee here
With what superior skill we can abuse
The gifts of Providence, and squander life.
The dream is past; and thou hast found again

* Omai.