SO shall my verse run gentle as the floods, So answer all ye hills, and echo all ye woods; So glide ye streams in hollow channels pent, Forever wasting, yet not ever spent. Ye clust'ring boughs by hoary thickets borne! Ye fields high waving with eternal corn! Ye woodland nymphs the tender tale rehearse, The fabled authors of immortal verse: Ye Dryads fair, attend the scene I love, And Heav'n shall centre in yon' blooming grove. What tho' thy woods, AMERICA, contain The howling forest, and the tiger's den, The dang'rous serpent, and the beast of prey, Men are more fierce, more terrible than they. No monster with it's vile contagious breath, No flying scorpion darting instant death; No pois'nous adder, burning to engage, Has half the venom or has half the rage. What tho' the Turk protests to heav'n his ire, With lift up hand amidst his realms of fire; And Russia's Empress sends her fleets afar, To aid the havock of the burning war: Their rage dismays not, and their arms in vain, In dreadful fury bathe with blood the plain; Their terrors harmless, tho' their story heard, How this one conquer'd, or was nobly spar'd: Vain is their rage, to us their anger vain, The deep Atlantic raves and roars between. TO yonder village then will I descend, There spend my days, and there my ev'nings spend; Sweet haunt of peace whose mud' wall'd sides delight, The rural mind beyond the city bright: Their tops with hazles or with alders wove, Remurmur magic to the neighb'ring grove; And each one lab'ring in his own employ, Comes weary home at night, but comes with joy: The soil which lay for many thousand years O'er run by woods, by thickets and by bears; Now reft of trees, admits the chearful light, And leaves long prospects to the piercing sight; Where once the lynx nocturnal sallies made, And the tall chestnut cast a dreadful shade: No more the panther stalks his bloody rounds, Nor bird of night her hateful note resounds; Nor howling wolves roar to the rising moon, As pale arose she o'er yon eastern down. Some prune their trees, a larger load to bear Of fruits nectarine blooming once a year: See groaning waggons to the village come Fill'd with the apple, apricot or plumb; And heavy beams suspended from a tree, To press their juice against the winter's day: Or see the plough torn through the new made field, Ordain'd a harvest, yet unknown to yield. The rising barn whose spacious floor receives The welcome thousands of the wheaten sheaves, And spreads it's arms to take the plenteous store, Sufficient for its master and the poor: For as Eumoeus us'd his beggar guest The great Ulysses in his tatters drest: So here fair Charity puts forth her hand, And pours her blessings o'er the greatful land: No needy wretch the rage of winter fears, Secure he sits and spends his aged years, With thankful heart to gen'rous souls and kind,