To men of other minds my fancy flies,
Embosomed in the deep where HOLLAND lies.
Methinks her patient sons before me stand
Where the broad ocean leans against the land,
And sedulous to stop the coming tide,
Lift the tall rampire's artificial pride.
Onward methinks, and diligently slow,
The firm, connected bulwark seems to grow;
Spreads its long arms amidst the watery roar,
Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore:
While the pent ocean, rising o'er the pile,
Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile;
The slow canal, the yellow-blossomed vale,
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail,
The crowded mart, the cultivated plain,
A new creation rescued from his reign.
Thus, while around the wave-subjected soil,
Impels the native to repeated toil,
Industrious habits in each bosom reign,
And industry begets a love of gain.
Hence all the good from opulence that springs,
With all those ills superfluous treasure brings,
Are here displayed. Their much-loved wealth imparts Convenience, plenty, elegance, and arts;
But view them closer, craft and fraud appear,
Even Liberty itself is bartered here.
At gold's superior charms all freedom flies,
The needy sell it, and the rich man buys:
A land of tyrants, and a den of slaves,
Here wretches seek dishonourable graves,
And calmly bent, to servitude conform,
Dull as their lakes that slumber in the storm.
Heavens! how unlike their Belgian sires of old!
Rough, poor, content, ungovernably bold,
War in each breast, and freedom on each brow,
How much unlike the sons of Britain now!
Fired at the sound, my genius spreads her wing, And flies where Britain courts the western spring; Where lawns extend that scorn Arcadian pride, And brighter streams than famed Hydaspes1 glide.
1 See note, "Paradise Lost," book iii. 1. 181.
There, all around, the gentlest breezes stray,
There gentle music melts on every spray;
Creation's mildest charms are there combined,
Extremes are only in the master's mind.
Stern o'er each bosom Reason holds her state,
With daring aims irregularly great.
Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
I see the lords of human-kind pass by;
Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band
By forms unfashioned, fresh from Nature's hand,
Fierce in their native hardiness of soul,
True to imagined right, above controul,
While even the peasant boasts these rights to scan,
And learns to venerate himself as man.
Thine, Freedom, thine the blessings pictured here,
Thine are those charms that dazzle and endear,
Too blest, indeed, were such without alloy,
But fostered even by Freedom, ills annoy;
That independence Britons prize too high,
Keeps man from man, and breaks the social tie.
The self-dependent lordlings stand alone,
All claims that bind and sweeten life unknown;
Here, by the bonds of nature feebly held,
Minds combat minds, repelling and repelled;
Ferments arise, imprisoned factions roar,
Repressed Ambition struggles round her shore,
Till, over-wrought, the general system feels
Its motions stop, or frenzy fire the wheels.
Nor this the worst. As Nature's ties decay,
As duty, love, and honour fail to sway,
Fictitious bonds, the bonds of wealth and law,
Still gather strength, and force unwilling awe.
Hence all obedience bows to these alone,
And talent sinks, and merit weeps unknown;
The time may come, when, stripped of all her charms, 355 The land of scholars, and the land of arms,
Where noble stems transmit the patriot flame,
Where kings have toiled, and poets wrote for fame,
One sink of level avarice shall lie,
And scholars, soldiers, kings unhonoured lie.
Yet think not thus, when Freedom's ills I state,
I mean to flatter kings, or court the great.
Ye powers of truth, that bid my soul aspire,
Far from my bosom drive the low desire,
And thou, fair Freedom, taught alike to feel
The rabble's rage, and tyrant's angry steel;
Thou transitory flower, alike undone
By proud contempt, or favour's fostering sun:
Still may thy blooms the changeful clime endure,
I only would repress them to secure;
For just experience tells, in every soil,
That those who think must govern those that toil;
And all that Freedom's highest aims can reach,
Is but to lay proportioned loads on each.
Hence, should one order disproportioned grow,
Its double weight must ruin all below.
O then how blind to all that truth requires,
Who think it freedom when a part aspires!
Calm is my soul, nor apt to rise in arms,
Except when fast-approaching danger warms;
But when contending chiefs blockade the throne,
Contracting regal power to stretch their own;
When I behold a factious band agree
To call it freedom when themselves are free ;
Each wanton judge new penal statutes draw,
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law;
The wealth of climes where savage nations roam,
Pillaged from slaves to purchase slaves at home,
Fear, pity, justice, indignation start,
Tear off reserve, and bare my swelling heart,
Till, half a patriot, half a coward grown,
I fly from petty tyrants to the throne.
Yes, brother, curse with me that baleful hour,
When first ambition struck at regal power;
And thus polluting honour in its source,
Gave wealth to sway the mind with double force.
Have we not seen, round Britain's peopled shore,
Her useful sons exchanged for useless ore?
Seen all her triumphs but destruction haste;
Like flaring tapers, brightening as they waste;
Seen Opulence, her grandeur to maintain,
Lead stern Depopulation in her train,
And over fields where scattered hamlets rose,
In barren, solitary pomp repose?
Have we not seen, at Pleasure's lordly call,
The smiling, long-frequented village fall;
Beheld the duteous son, the sire decayed,
The modest matron, and the blushing maid,
Forced from their homes, a melancholy train,
To traverse climes beyond the western main:
Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,
And Niagara2 stuns with thundering sound?
Even now, perhaps, as there some pilgrim strays Through tangled forests, and through dangerous ways; Where beasts with man divided empire claim,
And the brown Indian marks with murderous aim;
There, while above the giddy tempest flies,
And all around distressful yells arise,
The pensive exile, bending with his woe,
To stop too fearful, and too faint to go,
Casts a long look where England's glories shine,
And bids his bosom sympathise with mine.
Vain, very vain, my weary wish to find,
That bliss which only centres in the mind:
Why have I strayed from pleasure and repose,
To seek a good each government bestows?
In every government, though terrors reign,
Though tyrant kings, or tyrant laws restrain,
How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.
Still to ourselves, in every place consigned,
Our own felicity we make or find:
With secret course which no loud storms annoy,
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.
The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel,
Luke's iron crown3, and Damien's bed of steel*,
To men remote from power but rarely known,
Leave reason, faith, and conscience all our own.
1 A river of the United States of N. America, which flows into the Lake Ontario.
2 One of the most stupendous cataracts in the world, being in one part 164 feet in perpendicular height. The Niagara river is a branch of the St. Lawrence. It is calculated that 100 millions of tons of water per minute are precipitated down the cataract.
3 For Luke's, read Zeck's. George and Luke Zeck were two brothers, who headed an insurrection in Hungary, 1514. George, who had usurped the sovereignty, received the punishment of the iron crown.
4 A fanatic, who attempted the life of Louis XV. in 1757. For this attempt he was cruelly tortured, and afterwards executed.
EXAMINATION ON "THE TRAVELLER."
1. What was Goldsmith's object in this poem?
2. Quote a comparison from the first part of the poem.
3. Which, on the whole, may be considered the finest passage in this poem ? 4. What opinion does the poet give of the Italians?
5. What may we say of the versification of this poem?
6. Explain the poet's views of the French and Dutch.
7. Where may we find the moral of this poem (within the last twelve lines)? 8. How does Goldsmith's style differ from that of Thomson?
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