Vain transitory splendours could not all
  Reprieve the tottering mansion from its fall? 
  Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart
  An hour’s importance to the poor man’s heart. 
  Thither no more the peasant shall repair
  To sweet oblivion of his daily care;
  No more the farmer’s news, the barber’s tale,
  No more the woodman’s ballad shall prevail;
  No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear,
  Relax his ponderous strength, and lean to hear;
  The host himself no longer shall be found
  Careful to see the mantling bliss go round;
  Nor the coy maid, half willing to be pressed,
  Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest.

  Yes! let the rich deride, the proud disdain,
  These simple blessings of the lowly train;
  To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
  One native charm, than all the gloss of art. 
  Spontaneous joys, where Nature has its play,
  The soul adopts, and owns their first-born sway;
  Lightly they frolic o’er the vacant mind,
  Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined. 
  But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade,
  With all the freaks of wanton wealth arrayed—­
  In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain,
  The toiling pleasure sickens into pain;
  And, e’en while fashion’s brightest arts decoy,
  The heart distrusting asks if this be joy.

  Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen who survey
  The rich man’s joys increase, the poor’s decay,
  ’Tis yours to judge, how wide the limits stand
  Between a splendid and an happy land. 
  Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore,
  And shouting Folly hails them from her shore;
  Hoards e’en beyond the miser’s wish abound,
  And rich men flock from all the world around. 
  Yet count our gains!  This wealth is but a name
  That leaves our useful products still the same. 
  Not so the loss.  The man of wealth and pride
  Takes up a space that many poor supplied;
  Space for his lake, his park’s extended bounds,
  Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds: 
  The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth
  Has robbed the neighbouring fields of half their growth;
  His seat, where solitary sports are seen,
  Indignant spurns the cottage from the green: 
  Around the world each needful product flies,
  For all the luxuries the world supplies;
  While thus the land adorned for pleasure all
  In barren splendour feebly waits the fall.

  As some fair female unadorned and plain,
  Secure to please while youth confirms her reign,
  Slights every borrowed charm that dress supplies,
  Nor shares with art the triumph of her eyes;
  But when those charms are passed, for charms are frail,
  When time advances, and when lovers fail,
  She then, shines forth, solicitous to bless,
  In all the glaring impotence of dress. 
  Thus fares the land by luxury betrayed: