My soul, turn from them, turn we to survey Where rougher climes a nobler race display-- Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansions tread, And force a churlish soil for scanty bread. No product here the barren hills afford But man and steel, the soldier and his sword, No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array, But winter lingering chills the lap of May; No zephyr fondly sues the mountain's breast, But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest. [Illustration: BREASTS THE AIR, AND CAROLS AS HE GOES] Yet still, even here, content can spread a charm, Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm. Though poor the peasant's hut, his feasts though small, He sees his little lot, the lot of all; Sees no contiguous palace rear its head, To shame the meanness of his humble shed-- No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal, To make him loathe his vegetable meal-- But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil, Each wish contracting, fits him to the soil, Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose, Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes; With patient angle trolls the finny deep, Or drives his venturous plowshare to the steep, Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark the way, And drags the struggling savage into day. At night returning, every labor sped, He sits him down the monarch of a shed; Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys His children's looks, that brighten at the blaze-- While his lov'd partner, boastful of her hoard, Displays her cleanly platter on the board: And haply too some pilgrim, thither led, With many a tale repays the nightly bed. [Illustration: WHERE SNOW-TRACKS MARK THE WAY]