THE DESERTED VILLAGE.

A POEM.

[First published in May, 1770. Percy is wrong in dating it 1769. Seven editions were printed in the author's lifetime, the sixth appearing within a year of the first publication. The principal author's emendations occur in the third and fourth editions.-ED.]

[DEDICATION.]

TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

DEAR SIR,-I can have no expectations, in an address of this kind, either to add to your reputation, or to establish my own. You can gain nothing from my admiration, as I am ignorant of that art in which you are said to excel; and I may lose much by the severity of your judgment, as few have a juster taste in poetry than you. Setting interest, therefore, aside, to which I never paid much attention, I must be indulged at present in following my affections. The only dedication I ever made was to my brother, because I loved him better than most other men. He is since dead. Permit me to inscribe this Poem to you.

How far you may be pleased with the versification. and mere mechanical parts of this attempt, I don't pretend to enquire; but I know you will object, (and indeed several of our best and wisest friends concur in the opinion,) that the depopulation it deplores is no where to be seen, and the disorders it laments are only to be found in the poet's own imagination. To this I can scarce make

any other answer, than that I sincerely believe what I have written; that I have taken all possible pains, in my country excursions, for these four or five years past, to be certain of what I allege; and that all my views and enquiries have led me to believe those miseries real, which I here attempt to display. But this is not the place to enter into an enquiry whether the country be depopulating or not: the discussion would take up much room, and I should prove myself, at best, an indifferent politician, to tire the reader with a long preface, when I want his unfatigued. attention to a long poem.

For

In regretting the depopulation of the country, I inveigh against the encrease of our luxuries; and here also I expect the shout of modern politicians against me. twenty or thirty years past, it has been the fashion to consider luxury as one of the greatest national advantages; and all the wisdom of antiquity in that particular as erroneous. Still, however, I must remain a professed ancient on that head, and continue to think those luxuries prejudicial to states by which so many vices are introduced, and so many kingdoms have been undone. Indeed, so much has been poured out of late on the other side of the question, that, merely for the sake of novelty and variety, one would sometimes wish to be in the right. I am, dear sir, your sincere friend, and ardent admirer, OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

THE DESERTED VILLAGE.1

SWEET Auburn! loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheer'd the labouring swain,
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,

And parting summer's lingering blooms delay'd:
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,

Seats of my youth, when every sport could please,
How often have I loiter'd o'er thy green,

Where humble happiness endear'd each scene!
How often have I paused on every charm,
The shelter'd cot, the cultivated farm,

The never-failing brook, the busy mill,

The decent church that topt the neighbouring hill,

The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age and whisp'ring lovers made.
How often have I blest the coming day,
When toil remitting lent its turn to play,
And all the village train, from labour free,

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Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree;
While many a pastime circled in the shade,
The young contending as the old survey'd ;
And many a gambol frolick'd o'er the ground,
And sleights of art and feats of strength went round;

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The locality of this poem is supposed to be Lissoy, near Ballymahon, where the poet's brother Henry had his living. As usual in such cases, the place afterwards became the fashionable resort of poetical pilgrims, and paid the customary penalty of furnishing relics for the curious. The hawthorn bush has been converted into snuff-boxes, and now adorns the cabinets of poetical virtuosi.-B. [See also p. 18, and Appendix to our Life of Goldsmith,' v. i. Notwithstanding the abundance of evidence in favour of Lissoy, many think the original of Auburn is in England; among these are Mr. Bolton Corney, Mr. Forster, and Pro. fessor Masson.-ED.]

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And still as each repeated pleasure tired,
Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired;
The dancing pair that simply sought renown,
By holding out to tire each other down;
The swain, mistrustless of his smutted face,
While secret laughter titter'd round the place;
The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love,
The matron's glance that would those looks reprove :
These were thy charms, sweet village! sports like these,
With sweet succession, taught e'en toil to please;
These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed,
These were thy charms-but all these charms are fled.

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✓ Sweet, smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,
Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn!

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Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green:

One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain.
No more thy glassy brook reflects the day,
But, choked with sedges, works its weedy way;
Along thy glades, a solitary guest,

The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest
Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies,
And tires their echoes with unvaried cries:
Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all,
And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall;
And, trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand,
Far, far away, thy children leave the land.

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 destroy'd, can never be supplied.

A time there was, ere England's griefs began,
When every rood of ground maintain'd its man :
For him light labour spread her wholesome store,
Just gave what life required, but gave no more :

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His best companions, innocence and health,
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.

But times are alter'd: trade's unfeeling train
Usurp the land, and dispossess the swain;
Along the lawn, where scatter'd hamlets rose,
Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose,
And every want to opulence' allied,

And every pang that folly pays to pride.
These gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom,
Those calm desires that ask'd but little room,

Those healthful sports that graced the peaceful scene,
Lived in each look, and brighten'd all the green,—
These, far departing, seek a kinder shore,
And rural mirth and manners are no more.

Sweet Auburn! parent of the blissful hour,
Thy glades forlorn confess the tyrant's power.
Here, as I take my solitary rounds,
Amidst thy tangling walks and ruin'd grounds,
And, many a year elapsed, return to view 2
Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew.
Remembrance wakes with all her busy train,
Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain.

2

In all my wand'rings round this world of care,
In all my griefs-and God has given my share-
I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown,
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down ;
To husband out life's taper at the close,*

3

1 Editions one and two have "luxury."-ED. 2 At Lissoy it was believed that Goldsmith visited Ireland shortly after his return from his wanderings on the Continent, as he said he would in his letter to his brother-in-law Hodson (Dec. 27, 1757), and that part of this poem was actually written in the village. See Newell's account of his visit to Lissoy, 1811, p. 74.—ED.

3 Var.-After this was the following couplet, in the first three editions:

Here as with doubtful, pensive steps I range, Trace every scene, and wonder at the change. 4 Var.- My anxious day to husband near the close,

And keep life's flame, &c.-Editions one to three.