the great end of comedy-making an audience merry.' It was first acted in 1773.
Yet whatever estimate we form of the prose, or dramatic works of Dr. Goldsmith, his highest fame rests on his poetry, which has pleased, and probably ever will continue to please, not only readers of a plain and humble, but those of the most refined and cultivated taste. And it is highly creditable to him, that, in all his works, he has made genius subservient to morality.
ADIEU, sweet bard! to each fine feeling true,
Thy virtues many, and thy foibles few;
Those form'd to charm e'en vicious minds-and
With harmless mirth the social soul to please.
Another's woe thy heart could always melt;
None gave more free,-for none more deeply felt.
Sweet bard, adieu! thy own harmonious lays
Have sculptur'd out thy monument of praise:
Yes, these survive to time's remotest day;
While drops the bust, and boastful tombs decay.
Reader, if number'd in the muse's train,
Go, tune the lyre, and imitate his strain;
But, if no poet thou, reverse the plan,
Depart in peace, and imitate the man.
DARK as the night, which now in dunnest robe,
Ascends her zenith, o'er the silent globe;
Sad Melancholy wakes, awhile to tread
With solemn step the mansions of the dead:
Led by her hand, o'er this yet recent shrine
I sorrowing bend; and here essay to twine
The tributary wreath of laureat bloom,
With artless hands, to deck a poet's tomb;
The tomb where Goldsmith sleeps. Fond hopes,
No more your airy dreams shall mock my view:
Here will I learn ambition to control,
And each aspiring passion of the soul:
Ev'n now, methinks, his well-known voice I hear,
When late he meditated flight from care,
When as imagination fondly hied
To scenes of sweet retirement, thus he cried:
"Ye splendid fabrics, palaces, and towers,
Where dissipation leads the giddy hours,
Where pomp, disease, and knavery reside,
And folly bends the knee to wealthy pride;
Where luxury's purveyors learn to rise,
And worth, to want a prey, unfriended dies;
Where warbling eunuchs glitter in brocade,
And hapless poets toil for scauty bread:
Farewell! to other scenes I turn my eyes,
Embosom'd in the vale where Auburn lies,
Deserted Auburn, those now ruined glades,
Forlorn, yet ever dear and honoured shades.
There though the hamlet boasts no smiling train,
Nor sportful pastime circling on the plain;
No needy villains prowl around for prey,
No slanderers, no sycophants betray;
No gaudy foplings scornfully deride
The swain, whose humble pipe is all his pride.
There will I fly to seek that soft repose,
Which solitude contemplative bestows:
Yet, oh fond hope! perchance there still remains.
One lingering friend behind, to bless the plains;
Some hermit of the dale, enshrined in ease,
Long lost companion of my youthful days;
With whose sweet converse in his social bower,
I oft
may chide away some vacant hour;
To whose pure sympathy, I may impart
Each latent grief that labours at my heart,
Whate'er I felt, and what I saw, relate,
The shoals of luxury, the wrecks of state;
Those busy scenes, where science wakes in vain,
In which I shared, ah! ne'er to share again.
But whence that pang? does nature now rebel?
Why falters out my tongue the word farewell?
Ye friends! who long have witnessed to my toil,
And seen me ploughing in a thankless soil;
Whose partial tenderness hushed every pain,
Whose approbation made my bosom vain:
'Tis you to whom my soul divided hies
With fond regret, and half unwilling flies;
Sighs forth her parting wishes to the wind,
And lingering leaves her better half behind.
Can I forget the intercourse I shared,
What friendship cherished, and what zeal endeared?
Alas! remembrance still must turn to you,
And to my latest hour, protract the long adicu.
Amid the woodlands, wheresoe'er I rove,
The plain, or secret covert of the grove,
Imagination shall supply her store
Of painful bliss, and what she can restore;
Shall strew each lonely path with flow'rets gay,
And wide as is her boundless empire stray;
On eagle pinions traverse earth and skies,
And bid the lost and distant objects rise.
Here, where encircled o'er the sloping land
Woods rise on woods, shall Aristotle stand;
Lyceum round the godlike man rejoice,
And bow with reverence to wisdom's voice.
There, spreading oaks shall arch the vaulted dome,
The champion, there, of liberty and Rome,
In Attic eloquence shall thunder laws,
And uncorrupted senates shout applause.
Not more ecstatic visions rapt the soul
Of Numa, when to midnight grots he stole,
And learnt his lore, from virtue's mouth refin'd,
To fetter vice, and harmonize mankind.
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