"Each nobler aim, repressed by long control, / Now sinks at last or feebly mans the soul; / While low delights, succeeding fast behind, / In happier meanness occupy the mind: / As in those domes, where Caesars once bore sway, / Defaced by time and tottering in decay, / There in the ruin, heedless of the dead, / The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed, / And, wondering man could want the larger pile, / Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile."
The Traveller, or A Prospect of Society
Over 70 entries in ECCO and ESTC (1764, 1765, 1768, 1770, 1771, 1774, 1775, 1777, 1778, 1779, 1780, 1782, 1784, 1785, 1786, 1787, 1788, 1789, 1790, 1791, 1792, 1793, 1794, 1795, 1796, 1798, 1799, 1800) [Published in <u>The Works of the English Poets</u>].<br>
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See <u>The Traveller, or a Prospect of Society. A Poem.</u> (London: Printed for J. Newbery, in St. Paul’s Church-Yard, 1764). &lt;<a href="http://estc.bl.uk/N49108">Link to ESTC</a>&gt;<br>
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Text from Roger Lonsdale's <u>The Poems of Thomas Gray, William Collins, and Oliver Goldsmith</u> (London and New York: Longman and Norton: 1972).