Yet, still, even here content can spread a charm, 175
Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm.
Though poor the peasant's hut, his feasts tho' small,
He sees his little lot the lot of all;
Sees no contiguous palace[25] rear its head
To shame the meanness of his humble shed; 180
No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal
To make him loath his vegetable meal;
But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil,[26]
Each wish contracting fits him to the soil.
Cheerful at morn he wakes from short repose, 185
Breathes the keen air, and carols as he goes;
With patient angle trolls the finny deep;
Or drives his venturous plowshare to the steep;
Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark the way,
And drags the struggling savage[27] into day. 190
At night returning, every labor sped,
He sits him down the monarch of a shed;
Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys
His children's looks, that brighten at the blaze;
While his loved partner, boastful of her hoard, 195
Displays her cleanly platter on the board:
And haply too some pilgrim, thither led,
With many a tale repays the nightly bed.[28]
Thus every good his native wilds impart
Imprints the patriot passion on his heart; 200
And ev'n those ills that round his mansion rise
Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies.
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