"One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain.
* * * * * *
Ill fares the land to hastening ills a prey:
Where wealth accumulates and men decay:
Princes or lords may flourish or may fade;
A breath can make them as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroy'd can never be supply'd.
* * * * * *
A time there was ere England's griefs began;
When every rood of ground maintained its man;
But times are alter'd, trade's unfeeling train
Usurp the land, and dispossess the swain."
Goldsmith: The Deserted Village
Other excerpts from this poem appear in Crosby's Calendar, but this one does not. I hereby add it!
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