Oliver Goldsmith: The Deserted Village

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Abandoned street and home, Rowley, Alberta: photo by Kappakapa, 2008

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Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn;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 mould'ring wall;

And trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand,

Far, far away, thy children leave the land.

Disused grain elevators, Rowley, Alberta: photo by Kappakapa, 2008

Oliver Goldsmith: excerpt from The Deserted Village, 1770