Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay:
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.
~ Oliver Goldsmith,

It is a poem by Oliver Goldsmith called "The Deserted Village".
It was written in the eighteenth century.
Poem has 436 lines.

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This article contributed by Jane Turner.