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 ruined grounds, And, many a year elapsed, return to view 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. In all my wanderings 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, And keep the flame from wasting by repose. I still had hopes—for pride attends us still— Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill; Around my fire an evening group to draw, And tell of all I felt, and all I saw; And as a hare whom hounds and horns pursue Pants to the place from whence at first she flew, I still had hopes, my long vexations past, Here to return—and die at home at last. Oh, blest retirement! friend to life's decline, Retreat from care, that never must be mine, How blest is he who crowns in shades like these A youth of labor with an age of ease; Who quits a world where strong temptations try, And since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly! For him no wretches, born to work and weep, Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep; No surly porter stands in guilty state, To spurn imploring famine from the gate: But on he moves to meet his latter end, Angels around befriending virtue's friend; Bends to the grave with unperceived decay, While resignation gently slopes the way; And, all his prospects brightening to the last, His heaven commences ere the world be past. Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close Up yonder hill the village murmur rose. [Pg 6526]There, as I passed with careless steps and slow, The mingling notes came softened from below: The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung, The sober herd that lowed to meet their young; The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool; The playful children just let loose from school; The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind: These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, And filled each pause the nightingale had made. But now the sounds of population fail; No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale; No busy steps the grass-grown footway tread, But all the bloomy flush of life is fled. All but yon widowed, solitary thing That feebly bends beside the plashy spring; She, wretched matron,—forced in age, for bread, To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread, To pick her wintry fagot from the thorn, To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn,— She only left of all the harmless train, The sad historian of the pensive plain. Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled, And still where many a garden flower grows wild, There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,