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CITIES

CHARACTERIZED.

BUT, though true worth and virtue in the mild
And genial soil of cultivated life

Thrive most, and may perhaps thrive only there,
Yet not in cities oft: in proud and gay
And gain-devoted cities. Thither flow,
As to a common and most noisome sew'r,
The dregs and feculence of ev'ry land.
In cities foul example on most minds
Begets its likeness. Rank abundance breeds
In gross and pamper'd cities sloth and lust,
And wantonness and gluttonous excess.
In cities vice is hidden with most ease,

Or seen with least reproach; and virtue, taught
By frequent lapse, can hope no triumph there
Beyond th' achievement of successful flight.
I do confess them nurs'ries of the arts,

In which they flourish most; where, in the beams
Of warm encouragement, and in the eye

E

Of public note, they reach their perfect size. Such London is, by taste and wealth proclaim'd The fairest capital of all the world,

By riot and incontinence the worst.

Oh thou, resort and mart of all the earth, Chequer'd with all complexions of mankind, And spotted with all crimes; in whom I see Much that I love, and more that I admire, And all that I abhor; thou freckled fair, That pleasest and yet shock'st me, I can laugh And I can weep, can hope, and can despond, Feel wrath and pity, when I think on thee! Ten righteous would have sav'd a city once, And thou hast many righteous.-Well for theeThat salt preserves thee; more corrupted else, And therefore more obnoxious, at this hour Than Sodom in her day had pow'r to be,

For whom God heard his Abr'am plead in vain.

RURAL LIFE

PREFERRED.

GOD made the country, and man made the town;
What wonder then that health and virtue, gifts
That can alone make sweet the bitter draught
That life holds out to all, should most abound
And least be threaten'd in the fields and groves?
Possess
ye, therefore, ye, who, born about
In chariots and sedans, know no fatigue.
But that of idleness, and taste no scenes
But such as art contrives, possess ye still
Your element; there only can ye shine;
There only minds like your's can do no harm.
Our groves were planted to console at noon
The pensive wand'rer in their shades. At eve
The moon-beam, sliding softly in between
The sleeping leaves, is all the light they wish,
Birds warbling all the music.
We can spare

The splendour of your lamps; they but eclipse
Our softer satellite. Your songs confound

Our more harmonious notes: the thrush departs
Scar'd, and th' offended nightingale is mute.
There is a public mischief in your mirth;
It plagues your country. Folly such as your's,
Grac'd with a sword, and worthier of a fan,
Has made, what enemies could ne'er have done,
Our arch of empire, stedfast but for you,
A mutilated structure, soon to fall.

MORAL

REFLECTIONS.

OH for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,

Might never reach me more. My ear is pain'd,
My soul is sick, with ev'ry day's report

Of wrong and outrage with which earth is fill'd.
There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart,

It does not feel for man; the natʼral bond
Of brotherhood is sever'd as the flax
That falls asunder at the touch of fire.
He finds his fellow guilty of a skin

Not colour'd like his own; and, having pow'r
T'enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.
Lands intersected by a narrow frith

Abhor each other. Mountains interpos'd

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