The Deserted Village (excerpt)

Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain, Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain, Where smiling spring its earliest visits paid, And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed: Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease, Seats of my youth, where every sport could please, How often have I loitered o'er your green, Where humble happiness endeared each scene. Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay: Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade; A breath can make them, as a breath has made; But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, When once destroyed can never be supplied.…