160
  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, 165
  Where rougher climes a nobler race display;
  Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansions tread,
  And force a churlish soil[23] for scanty bread. 
  No product here the barren hills afford,
  But man and steel, the soldier and his sword:[24] 170
  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, even here content can spread a charm, 175
  Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm. 
  Though poor the peasant’s hut, his feasts tho’ small,
  He sees his little lot the lot of all;
  Sees no contiguous palace[25] rear its head
  To shame the meanness of his humble shed; 180
  No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal
  To make him loath his vegetable meal;
  But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil,[26]
  Each wish contracting fits him to the soil. 
  Cheerful at morn he wakes from short repose, 185
  Breathes the keen air, and carols as he goes;
  With patient angle trolls the finny deep;
  Or drives his venturous plowshare to the steep;
  Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark the way,
  And drags the struggling savage[27] into day. 190
  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 loved partner, boastful of her hoard, 195
  Displays her cleanly platter on the board: 
  And haply too some pilgrim, thither led,
  With many a tale repays the nightly bed.[28]

  Thus every good his native wilds impart
  Imprints the patriot passion on his heart; 200
  And ev’n 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, 205
  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 assigned;[29]
  Their wants but few, their wishes all confined. 210
  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 redressed;
  Whence from such lands each pleasing science flies 215