But now the sounds of population fail,
  No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale,
  No busy steps the grass-grown foot-way tread,
  For all the bloomy flush of life is fled. 
  All but yon widowed, solitary thing,
  That feebly bends beside the plashy spring: 
  She, wretched matron, forced in age, for bread,
  To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread,
  To pick her wintry faggot from the thorn,
  To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn;
  She only left of all the harmless train,
  The sad historian of the pensive plain.

  Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled,
  And still where many a garden flower grows wild;
  There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,
  The village preacher’s modest mansion rose. 
  A man he was to all the country dear,
  And passing rich with forty pounds a year;
  Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
  Nor e’er had changed, nor wished to change his place;
  Unpractised he to fawn, or seek for power,
  By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour;
  Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,
  More skilled to raise the wretched than to rise. 
  His house was known to all the vagrant train;
  He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain: 
  The long-remembered beggar was his guest,
  Whose beard descending swept his aged breast;
  The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud,
  Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed;
  The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay,
  Sate by his fire, and talked the night away,
  Wept o’er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done,
  Shouldered his crutch and showed how fields were won. 
  Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow,
  And quite forget their vices in their woe;
  Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
  His pity gave ere charity began.

  Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride,
  And e’en his failings leaned to Virtue’s side;
  But in his duty prompt at every call,
  He watched and wept, he prayed and felt, for all;

  And, as a bird each fond endearment tries
  To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies,
  He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,
  Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.

  Beside the bed where parting life was laid,
  And sorrow, guilt, and pain by turns dismayed,
  The reverend champion stood.  At his control
  Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul;
  Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise,
  And his last faltering accents whispered praise.

  At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
  His looks adorned the venerable place;
  Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway,
  And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray. 
  The service past, around the pious man,
  With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran;