The Traveller

REMOTE, unfriended, melancholy, slow,Or by the lazy Scheldt, or wandering Po;Or onward, where the rude Carinthian boorAgainst the houseless stranger shuts the door;Or where Campania’s plain forsaken lies,A weary waste expanding to the skies:Where’er I roam, whatever realms to see,My heart untravell’d fondly turns to thee;Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain,And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.

Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend,And round his dwelling guardian saints attend:Bless’d be that spot, where cheerful guests retireTo pause from toil, and trim their ev’ning fire;Bless’d that abode, where want and pain repair,And every stranger finds a ready chair;Bless’d be those feasts with simple plenty crown’d,Where all the ruddy family aroundLaugh at the jests or pranks that never fail,Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale,Or press the bashful stranger to his food,And learn the luxury of doing good.

But me, not destin’d such delights to share,My prime of life in wand’ring spent and care,Impell’d, with steps unceasing, to pursueSome fleeting good, that mocks me with the view;That, like the circle bounding earth and skies,Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies;My fortune leads to traverse realms alone,And find no spot of all the world my own.

E’en now, where Alpine solitudes ascend,I sit me down a pensive hour to spend;And, plac’d on high above the storm’s career,Look downward where a hundred realms appear;Lakes, forests, cities, plains, extending wide,The pomp of kings, the shepherd’s humbler pride.

When thus Creation’s charms around combine,Amidst the store, should thankless pride repine?Say, should the philosophic mind disdainThat good, which makes each humbler bosom vain?Let school-taught pride dissemble all it can,These little things are great to little man;And wiser he, whose sympathetic mindExults in all the good of all mankind.Ye glitt’ring towns, with wealth and splendour crown’d,Ye fields, where summer spreads profusion round,Ye lakes, whose vessels catch the busy gale,Ye bending swains, that dress the flow’ry vale,For me your tributary stores combine;Creation’s heir, the world, the world is mine!

As some lone miser visiting his store,Bends at his treasure, counts, re-counts it o’er;Hoards after hoards his rising raptures fill,Yet still he sighs, for hoards are wanting still:Thus to my breast alternate passions rise,Pleas’d with each good that heaven to man supplies:Yet oft a sigh prevails, and sorrows fall,To see the hoard of human bliss so small;And oft I wish, amidst the scene, to findSome spot to real happiness consign’d,Where my worn soul, each wand’ring hope at rest,May gather bliss to see my fellows bless’d.

But where to find that happiest spot below,Who can direct, when all pretend to know?The shudd’ring tenant of the frigid zoneBoldly proclaims that happiest spot his own,Extols the treasures of his stormy seas,And his long nights of revelry and ease;The naked negro, panting at the line,Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine,Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave,And thanks his gods for all the good they gave.Such is the patriot’s boast, where’er we roam,His first, best country ever is, at home.And yet, perhaps, if countries we compare,And estimate the blessings which they share,Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom findAn equal portion dealt to all mankind,As different good, by Art or Nature given,To different nations makes their blessings even.

Nature, a mother kind alike to all,Still grants her bliss at Labour’s earnest call;With food as well the peasant is suppliedOn Idra’s cliffs as Arno’s shelvy side;And though the rocky-crested summits frown,These rocks, by custom, turn to beds of down.From Art more various are the blessings sent;Wealth commerce, honour, liberty, content.Yet these each other’s power so strong contest,That either seems destructive of the rest.Where wealth and freedom reign, contentment fails,And honour sinks where commerce long prevails.Hence every state to one lov’d blessing prone,Conforms and models life to that alone.Each to the favourite happiness attends,And spurns the plan that aims at other ends;Till, carried to excess in each domain,This favourite good begets peculiar pain.

But let us try these truths with closer eyes,And trace them through the prospect as it lies:Here for a while my proper cares resign’d,Here let me sit in sorrow for mankind,Like yon neglected shrub at random cast,That shades the steep, and sighs at every blast.

Far to the right where Apennine ascends,Bright as the summer, Italy extends;Its uplands sloping deck the mountain’s side,Woods over woods in gay theatric pride;While oft some temple’s mould’ring tops betweenWith venerable grandeur mark the scene

Could Nature’s bounty satisfy the breast,The sons of Italy were surely blest.Whatever fruits in different climes were found,That proudly rise, or humbly court the ground;Whatever blooms in torrid tracts appear,Whose bright succession decks the varied year;Whatever sweets salute the northern skyWith vernal lives that blossom but to die;These here disporting own the kindred soil,Nor ask luxuriance from the planter’s toil;While sea-born gales their gelid wings expandTo winnow fragrance round the smiling land.

But small the bliss that sense alone bestows,And sensual bliss is all the nation knows.In florid beauty groves and fields appear,Man seems the only growth that dwindles here.Contrasted faults through all his manner reign;Though poor, luxurious; though submissive, vain;Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue;And e’en in penance planning sins anew.All evils here contaminate the mind,That opulence departed leaves behind;For wealth was theirs, not far remov’d the date,When commerce proudly flourish’d through the state;At her command the palace learn’d to rise,Again the long-fall’n column sought the skies;The canvas glow’d beyond e’en Nature warm,The pregnant quarry teem’d with human form;Till, more unsteady than the southern gale,Commerce on other shores display’d her sail;While nought remain’d of all that riches gave,But towns unmann’d, and lords without a slave;And late the nation found, with fruitless skill,Its former strength was but plethoric ill.

Yet still the loss of wealth is here suppliedBy arts, the splendid wrecks of former pride;From these the feeble heart and long-fall’n mindAn easy compensation seem to find.Here may be seen, in bloodless pomp array’d,The paste-board triumph and the cavalcade;Processions form’d for piety and love,A mistress or a saint in every grove.By sports like these are all their cares beguil’d,The sports of children satisfy the child;Each nobler aim, repress’d by long control,Now sinks at last, or feebly mans the soul;While low delights, succeeding fast behind,In happier meanness occupy the mind:As in those domes, where Caesars once bore sway,Defac’d by time and tottering in decay,There in the ruin, heedless of the dead,The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed,And, wond’ring man could want the larger pile,Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile.

My soul, turn from them; turn we to surveyWhere rougher climes a nobler race display,Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansions 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;No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array,But winter ling’ring chills the lap of May;No Zephyr fondly sues the mountain’s breast,But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest.

Yet still, e’en here, content can spread a charm,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 headTo shame the meanness of his humble shed;No costly lord the sumptuous banquet dealTo 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,Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes;With patient angle trolls the finny deep,Or drives his vent’rous plough-share to the steep;Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark the way,And drags the struggling savage into day.At night returning, every labour sped,He sits him down the monarch of a shed;Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveysHis children’s looks, that brighten at the blaze;While his lov’d partner, boastful of her hoard,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,And e’en those ills, 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,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.

Such are the charms to barren states assign’d;Their wants but few, their wishes all confin’d.Yet let them only share the praises due,If few their wants, their pleasures are but few;For every want that stimulates the breast,Becomes a source of pleasure when redrest.Whence from such lands each pleasing science flies,That first excites desire, and then supplies;Unknown to them, when sensual pleasures cloy,To fill the languid pause with finer joy;Unknown those powers that raise the soul to flame,Catch every nerve, and vibrate through the frame.Their level life is but a smould’ring fire,Unquench’d by want, unfann’d by strong desire;Unfit for raptures, or, if raptures cheerOn some high festival of once a year,In wild excess the vulgar breast takes fire,Till, buried in debauch, the bliss expire.

But not their joys alone thus coarsely flow:Their morals, like their pleasures, are but low;For, as refinement stops, from sire to sonUnalter’d, unimprov’d the manners run;And love’s and friendship’s finely pointed dartFall blunted from each indurated heart.Some sterner virtues o’er the mountain’s breastMay sit, like falcons cow’ring on the nest;But all the gentler morals, such as playThrough life’s more cultur’d walks, and charm the way,These far dispers’d, on timorous pinions fly,To sport and flutter in a kinder sky.

To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign,I turn; and France displays her bright domain.Gay sprightly land of mirth and social ease,Pleas’d with thyself, whom all the world can please,How often have I led thy sportive choir,With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire!Where shading elms along the margin grew,And freshen’d from the wave the Zephyr flew;And haply, though my harsh touch falt’ring still,But mock’d all tune, and marr’d the dancer’s skill;Yet would the village praise my wondrous power,And dance, forgetful of the noon-tide hour.Alike all ages. Dames of ancient daysHave led their children through the mirthful maze,And the gay grandsire, skill’d in gestic lore,Has frisk’d beneath the burthen of threescore.

So bless’d a life these thoughtless realms display,Thus idly busy rolls their world away:Theirs are those arts that mind to mind endear,For honour forms the social temper here:Honour, that praise which real merit gains,Or e’en imaginary worth obtains,Here passes current; paid from hand to hand,It shifts in splendid traffic round the land:From courts, to camps, to cottages it strays,And all are taught an avarice of praise;They please, are pleas’d, they give to get esteem,Till, seeming bless’d, they grow to what they seem.

But while this softer art their bliss supplies,It gives their follies also room to rise;For praise too dearly lov’d, or warmly sought,Enfeebles all internal strength of thought;And the weak soul, within itself unblest,Leans for all pleasure on another’s breast.Hence ostentation here, with tawdry art,Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart;Here vanity assumes her pert grimace,And trims her robes of frieze with copper lace;Here beggar pride defrauds her daily cheer,To boast one splendid banquet once a year;The mind still turns where shifting fashion draws,Nor weighs the solid worth of self-applause.

To men of other minds my fancy flies,Embosom’d in the deep where Holland lies.Methinks her patient sons before me stand,Where the broad ocean leans against the land,And, sedulous to stop the coming tide,Lift the tall rampire’s artificial pride.Onward, methinks, and diligently slow,The firm-connected bulwark seems to grow;Spreads its long arms amidst the wat’ry roar,Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore;While the pent ocean rising o’er the pile,Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile;The slow canal, the yellow-blossom’d vale,The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail,The crowded mart, the cultivated plain,A new creation rescu’d from his reign.

Thus, while around the wave-subjected soilImpels the native to repeated toil,Industrious habits in each bosom reign,And industry begets a love of gain.Hence all the good from opulence that springs,With all those ills superfluous treasure brings,Are here displayed. Their much-lov’d wealth impartsConvenience, plenty, elegance, and arts;But view them closer, craft and fraud appear,E’en liberty itself is barter’d here.At gold’s superior charms all freedom flies,The needy sell it, and the rich man buys;A land of tyrants, and a den of slaves,Here wretches seek dishonourable graves,And calmly bent, to servitude conform,Dull as their lakes that slumber in the storm.

Heavens! how unlike their Belgic sires of old!Rough, poor, content, ungovernably bold;War in each breast, and freedom on each brow;How much unlike the sons of Britain now!

Fir’d at the sound, my genius spreads her wing,And flies where Britain courts the western spring;Where lawns extend that scorn Arcadian pride,And brighter streams than fam’d Hydaspes glide.There all around the gentlest breezes stray,There gentle music melts on ev’ry spray;Creation’s mildest charms are there combin’d,Extremes are only in the master’s mind!Stern o’er each bosom reason holds her state,With daring aims irregularly great;Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,I see the lords of human kind pass by,Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band,By forms unfashion’d, fresh from Nature’s hand;Fierce in their native hardiness of soul,True to imagin’d right, above control,While e’en the peasant boasts these rights to scan,And learns to venerate himself as man.

Thine, Freedom, thine the blessings pictur’d here,Thine are those charms that dazzle and endear;Too bless’d, indeed, were such without alloy,But foster’d e’en by Freedom, ills annoy:That independence Britons prize too high,Keeps man from man, and breaks the social tie;The self-dependent lordlings stand alone,All claims that bind and sweeten life unknown;Here by the bonds of nature feebly held,Minds combat minds, repelling and repell’d.Ferments arise, imprison’d factions roar,Repress’d ambition struggles round her shore,Till over-wrought, the general system feelsIts motions stop, or frenzy fire the wheels.

Nor this the worst. As nature’s ties decay,As duty, love, and honour fail to sway,Fictitious bonds, the bonds of wealth and law,Still gather strength, and force unwilling awe.Hence all obedience bows to these alone,And talent sinks, and merit weeps unknown;Time may come, when stripp’d of all her charms,The land of scholars, and the nurse of arms,Where noble stems transmit the patriot flame,Where kings have toil’d, and poets wrote for fame,One sink of level avarice shall lie,And scholars, soldiers, kings, unhonour’d die.

Yet think not, thus when Freedom’s ills I state,I mean to flatter kings, or court the great;Ye powers of truth, that bid my soul aspire,Far from my bosom drive the low desire;And thou, fair Freedom, taught alike to feelThe rabble’s rage, and tyrant’s angry steel;Thou transitory flower, alike undoneBy proud contempt, or favour’s fostering sun,Still may thy blooms the changeful clime endure,I only would repress them to secure:For just experience tells, in every soil,That those who think must govern those that toil;And all that freedom’s highest aims can reach,Is but to lay proportion’d loads on each.Hence, should one order disproportion’d grow,Its double weight must ruin all below.

O then how blind to all that truth requires,Who think it freedom when a part aspires!Calm is my soul, nor apt to rise in arms,Except when fast-approaching danger warms:But when contending chiefs blockade the throne,Contracting regal power to stretch their own;When I behold a factious band agreeTo call it freedom when themselves are free;Each wanton judge new penal statutes draw,Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law;The wealth of climes, where savage nations roam,Pillag’d from slaves to purchase slaves at home;Fear, pity, justice, indignation start,Tear off reserve, and bare my swelling heart;Till half a patriot, half a coward grown,I fly from petty tyrants to the throne.

Yes, brother, curse with me that baleful hour,When first ambition struck at regal power;And thus polluting honour in its source,Gave wealth to sway the mind with double force.Have we not seen, round Britain’s peopled shore,Her useful sons exchang’d for useless ore?Seen all her triumphs but destruction haste,Like flaring tapers bright’ning as they waste;Seen opulence, her grandeur to maintain,Lead stern depopulation in her train,And over fields where scatter’d hamlets rose,In barren solitary pomp repose?Have we not seen, at pleasure’s lordly call,The smiling long-frequented village fall?Beheld the duteous son, the sire decay’d,The modest matron, and the blushing maid,Forc’d from their homes, a melancholy train,To traverse climes beyond the western main;Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,And Niagara stuns with thund’ring sound?

E’en now, perhaps as there some pilgrim straysThrough tangled forests, and through dangerous ways;Where beasts with man divided empire claim,And the brown Indian marks with murd’rous aim;There, while above the giddy tempest flies,And all around distressful yells arise,The pensive exile, bending with his woe,To stop too fearful, and too faint to go,Casts a long look where England’s glories shine,And bids his bosom sympathise with mine.

Vain, very vain, my weary search to findThat bliss which only centres in the mind:Why have I stray’d from pleasure and repose,To seek a good each government bestows?In every government, though terrors reign,Though tyrant kings, or tyrant laws restrain,How small, of all that human hearts endure,That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.Still to ourselves in every place consign’d,Our own felicity we make or find:With secret course, which no loud storms annoy,Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.The lifted axe, the agonising wheel,Luke’s iron crown, and Damiens’ bed of steel,To men remote from power but rarely known,Leave reason, faith, and conscience all our own.