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.