If to the city sped--what waits him there? To see profusion that he must not share, 310 To see ten thousand baneful arts combined To pamper luxury, and thin mankind;[23] To see those joys the sons of pleasure know Extorted from his fellow-creature's woe. Here while the courtier glitters in brocade, 315 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 decked, admits the gorgeous train: 320 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 325 Where the poor houseless shivering female lies. She once, perhaps, in village plenty blessed, Has wept at tales of innocence distressed; Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn: 330 Now lost to all; her friends, her virtue fled, Near her betrayer's door she lays her head, And, pinched with cold, and shrinking from the shower, With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour, When idly first, ambitious of the town, 335 She left her wheel and robes of country brown. Do thine, sweet Auburn,--thine, the loveliest train,-- Do thy fair tribes participate[24] her pain? Even now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led, At proud men's doors they ask a little bread! 340 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[25] murmurs to their woe. Far different there from all that charmed before 345 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; 350 Those poisonous fields with rank luxuriance crowned, 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[26] wait their hapless prey, 355 And savage men more murderous still than they; While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies, Mingling the ravaged landscape with the skies. Far different these from every former scene, The cooling brook, the grassy vested green, 360 The breezy covert of the warbling grove, That only sheltered thefts of harmless love.