My fortune leads to traverse realms alone,

And find no spot of all the world my own.

Even now, where Alpine solitudes ascend,

I sit me down a pensive hour to spend;

And plac’d on high, above the storms career,

Look downward where an hundred realms appear—

appear—

8

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 disdain

That 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 mind

Exults in all the good of all mankind.

Ye glittering towns with wealth and splendour crown’d,

Ye fields where summer spreads profusion round,

 Prev. P 15/189 next