If to the city sped--what waits him there? To see profusion that he must not share; To see ten thousand baneful arts combin'd To pamper luxury, and thin mankind; To see those joys the sons of pleasure know, Extorted from his fellow-creatures' woe: Here, while the courtier glitters in brocade, There the pale artist plies the sickly trade; Here, while the proud their long-drawn pomps display, There the black gibbet glooms beside the way. The dome where pleasure holds her midnight reign, Here, richly deck'd, admits the gorgeous train-- Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square, The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare. Sure scenes like these no troubles e'er annoy: Sure these denote one universal joy! Are these thy serious thoughts?--ah! turn thine eyes Where the poor houseless shivering female lies. She once, perhaps, in village plenty bless'd, Has wept at tales of innocence distress'd-- Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn; Now lost to all--her friends, her virtue fled, Near her betrayer's door she lays her head-- And, pinch'd with cold, and shrinking from the shower, With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour When idly first, ambitious of the town, She left her wheel, and robes of country brown. [Illustration: The poor, houseless, shivering female lies] Do thine, sweet AUBURN! thine, the loveliest train, Do thy fair tribes participate her pain? Even now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led, At proud men's doors they ask a little bread. Ah, no! To distant climes, a dreary scene, Where half the convex world intrudes between, Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go, Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe. Far different there from all that charm'd before, The various terrors of that horrid shore; Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray, And fiercely shed intolerable day-- Those matted woods where birds forget to sing But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling-- Those poisonous fields with rank luxuriance crown'd Where the dark scorpion gathers death around-- Where at each step the stranger fears to wake The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake-- Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey, And savage men more murderous still than they-- While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies, Mingling the ravag'd landscape with the skies. Far different these from every former scene; The cooling brook, the grassy-vested green, The breezy covert of the warbling grove, That only shelter'd thefts of harmless love. Good Heaven! what sorrows gloom'd that parting day, That call'd them from their native walks away, When the poor exiles, every pleasure pass'd, Hung round their bowers, and fondly look'd their last,