Which neither groves nor happy valleys boast;
Where other cares than those the Muse relates,
And other shepherds dwell with other mates;
By such examples taught, I paint the Cot,
As Truth will paint it, and as Bards will not: 
Nor you, ye Poor, of letter’d scorn complain,
To you the smoothest song is smooth in vain;
O’ercome by labour, and bow’d down by time,
Feel you the barren flattery of a rhyme? 
Can poets soothe you, when you pine for bread,
By winding myrtles round your ruin’d shed? 
Can their light tales your weighty griefs o’erpower,
Or glad with airy mirth the toilsome hour? 
   Lo! where the heath, with withering brake grown o’er,
Lends the light turf that warms the neighbouring poor;
From thence a length of burning sand appears,
Where the thin harvest waves its wither’d ears;
Rank weeds, that every art and care defy,
Reign o’er the land, and rob the blighted rye. 
There thistles stretch their prickly arms afar,
And to the ragged infant threaten war;
There poppies nodding, mock the hope of toil,
There the blue bugloss paints the sterile soil;
Hardy and high, above the slender sheaf,
The slimy mallow waves her silky leaf;
O’er the young shoot the charlock throws a shade,
And clasping tares cling round the sickly blade. 
With mingled tints the rocky coasts abound,
And a sad splendour vainly shines around. 
So looks the nymph whom wretched arts adorn,
Betray’d by man, then left for man to scorn;
Whose cheek in vain assumes the mimic rose,
While her sad eyes the troubled breast disclose;
Whose outward splendour is but folly’s dress,
Exposing most, when most it gilds distress. 
   Here joyless roam a wild amphibious race,
With sullen woe display’d in every face;
Who, far from civil arts and social fly,
And scowl at strangers with suspicious eye. 
   Here too the lawless merchant of the main
Draws from his plough th’ intoxicated swain;
Want only claim’d the labour of the day,
But vice now steals his nightly rest away. 
   Where are the swains, who, daily labour done,
With rural games play’d down the setting sun;
Who struck with matchless force the bounding ball,
Or made the pond’rous quoit obliquely fall;
While some huge Ajax, terrible and strong,
Engaged some artful stripling of the throng. 
And fell beneath him, foil’d, while far around
Hoarse triumph rose, and rocks return’d the sound? 
Where now are these?—­Beneath yon cliff they stand,
To show the freighted pinnace where to land;
To load the ready steed with guilty haste,
To fly in terror o’er the pathless waste,
Or, when detected, in their straggling course,
To foil their foes by cunning or by force;
Or, yielding part (which equal knaves demand),
To gain a lawless passport through the land. 
   Here, wand’ring long, amid these frowning fields,
I sought the simple life that Nature yields;