[n.b. – this is an excerpt (lines 405-422) of the Niagara section of the poem ]
Have we not seen, at pleasure’s lordly call,
The smiling long-frequented village fall I
Beheld the duteous son, the sire decay’d,
The modest matron, and the blushing maid,
Forc’d from their homes, a melancholy train,
To traverse climes beyond the western main—
Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,
And Niagara stuns with thundering sound?
Even now, perhaps, as there some pilgrim strays
Through tangled forests and through dang’rous ways,
Where beasts with man divided empire claim,
And the brown Indian marks with murderous aim—
There, while above the giddy tempest flies,
And all around distressful yells arise—
The pensive exile, bending with his woe,
To stop too fearful, and too faint to go,
Casts a long look where England’s glories shine,
And bids his bosom sympathize with mine.
Source: Oliver Goldsmith. The Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith. London: Cundall & Addey, 1851. [Reprint of 1764 edition]