THE DESERTED VILLAGE.
21
When idly first, ambitious of the town,
She left her wheel and robes of country brown.
She left her wheel and robes of country brown.
Do thine, sweet Auburn, thine, the loveliest train,
Do thy fair tribes participate her pain?
Even now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led,
At proud mens doors they ask a little bread!
Do thy fair tribes participate her pain?
Even now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led,
At proud mens doors they ask a little bread!
Ah, no. To distant climes a dreary scene,
Where half the convex world intrudes between,
To torrid tracts with fainting steps they go,
Where wild Altama murmurs to their wo.
Far different there from all that charmed before,
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;
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 tygers wait their hapless prey,
And savage men, more murdrous still than they;
While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies,
Mingling the ravaged landscape with the skies.
Where half the convex world intrudes between,
To torrid tracts with fainting steps they go,
Where wild Altama murmurs to their wo.
Far different there from all that charmed before,
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;
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 tygers wait their hapless prey,
And savage men, more murdrous still than they;
While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies,
Mingling the ravaged landscape with the skies.
Far
