now, gay in hope, explore the paths of men:
see from his cavern grim oppression rise,
and throw on poverty his cruel eyes;
keen on the helpless victim see him fly,
and stifle, dark, the feebly-bursting cry:
mark ruffian violence, distained with crimes,
rousing elate in these degenerate times,
view unsuspecting innocence a prey,
as guileful fraud points out the erring way:
while subtle litigation's pliant tongue
the life-blood equal sucks of right and wrong:
hark, injur'd want recounts th' unlisten'd tale,
and much-wrong'd mis'ry pours the unpitied wail!
ye dark waste hills, ye brown unsightly plains,
congenial scenes, ye soothe my mournful strains:
ye tempests, rage! ye turbid torrents, roll!
ye suit the joyless tenor of my soul.
life's social haunts and pleasures i resign;
be nameless wilds and lonely wanderings mine,
to mourn the woes my country must endure—
that would degenerate ages cannot cure.