Hail artless Simplicity, beautiful maid,

In the genuine attractions of nature array'd;

Let the rich, and the proud, and the gay and the vain,

Still laugh at the graces that move in thy train;

   No charm in thy modest allurements they find,

The pleasures they follow a sting leave behind;

Can criminal passion enrapture the breast,

Like virtue with peace and serenity blest?

   O would you Simplicity's precepts attend,

Like us with delight at her alter you'd bend,

The pleasures she yields would with joy be embrac'd,

You'd practice from virtue, and love them from taste.

  The Linnet enchants us the bushes among,

Tho cheap the musician, yet sweet is the song;

We catch his soft warbling in air as he floats,

And with extasy hang on his ravishing notes.

   Our water is drawn from the clearest of springs,

And our food, nor disease, nor satiety brings;

Our morning are chearful, our labours are blest,

Our evenings are pleasant, our nights crown'd with rest.

   From out culture yon garden its ornament finds,

And we catch at the hint for improving our minds;

To live to some purpose we constantly try,

And we mark by our actions the days as they fly.

   Since such are the joys that Simplicity yields,

We may well be content with our woods and our fields;

How useful to us then, ye great, were your wealth,

When without it we purchase both pleasure and health.