My soul, turn from them; turn we to survey 165 Where rougher climes a nobler race display; Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansion 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; 170 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. Yet still, even here, content can spread a charm, 175 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; 180 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, 185 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. 190 At night returning, every labour 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, 195 Displays her cleanly platter on the board; And haply too some pilgrim, thither led, With many a tale repays the nightly bed. Thus every good his native wilds impart, Imprints the patriot passion on his heart; 200 And ev’n those hills that round his mansion rise Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies. Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms, And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms: And as a child, when scaring sounds molest, 205 Clings close and closer to the mother’s breast, So the loud torrent and the whirlwind’s roar But bind him to his native mountains more.