The Deserted Village   by Oliver Goldsmith

Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain
Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid
And parting summer’s lingering blooms delayed
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease
Seats of my youth, when every sport could please
How often have I loitered o’er thy green
Where humble happiness endeared each scene
How often have I paused on every charm
The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm
The never failing brook, the busy mill
The decent church that topped the neighbouring hill
The hawthorn bush with seats beneath the shade
For talking age and whispering lovers made
How often have I blessed the coming day
When toil remitting lent its turn to play
And all the village train, from labour free
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree
While many a pastime circled in the shade
The young contending as the old surveyed
And many a gambol frolicked o’er the ground
And sleights of art and feats of strength went round
And still, as each repeated pleasure tired
Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired
The dancing pair that simply sought renown
By holding out to tire each other down
The swain mistrustless of his smutted face
While secret laughter tittered round the place
The bashful virgin’s side-long looks of love
The matron’s glance that would those looks reprove

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Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn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 the village stints thy smiling plain
No more thy glassy brook reflects the day
But, choked 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’er-tops the moldering wall
And trembling, shrinking from the spoiler’s hand
Far, far away thy children leave the land

Those gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom
Those calm desires that asked but little room
Those healthful sports that graced the peaceful scene
Lived in each look, and brightened all the green
These, far departing, seek a kinder shore
And rural mirth and manners are no more

Even now the devastation is begun
And half the business of destruction done
Even now, methinks, as pondering here I stand
I see the rural virtues leave the land
Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail
That idly waiting flaps with every gale
Downward they move, a melancholy band
Pass from the shore and darken all the strand