In barren splendour feebly waits the fall.
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s some fair female, unadorn'd and plain, Secure to please while youth confirms her reign, Slights every borrow'd charm that dress supplies, Nor shares with art the triumph of her eyes; But when those charms are past, for charms are frail, When time advances, and when lovers fail, She then shines forth, solicitous to bless, In all the glaring impotence of dress; Thus fares the land, by luxury betray'd, In nature's simplest charms at first array'd; {036} But verging to decline, its splendours rise, Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise; While, scourged by famine, from the smiling land The mournful peasant leads his humble band; And while he sinks, without one arm to save,
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