Thus fares the land by luxury betrayed, In nature’s simplest charms at first arrayed; But verging to decline, its splendors 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, The country blooms, a garden and a grave.

— OLIVER GOLDSMITH, The Deserted Village.