These were thy charms—but all these charms are fled. Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn, Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn; Amidst thy bowers the tyrant’s hand is seen, And desolation saddens all thy green; One only master grasps the whole domain, And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain. No more thy glassy brook reflects the day, But chok’d with sedges works its weedy way; Along thy glades, a solitary guest, The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest; Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies, And tires their echoes with unvaried cries; Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all, And the long grass o’ertops the mouldering wall; And, trembling, shrinking from the spoiler’s hand, Far, far away thy children leave the land. 36 36 Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,