Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
I see the lords of humankind pass by.

These lines are from Oliver Goldsmith’s long poem "The Traveller; or, A Prospect of Society" (1764), a reflective survey of European nations and social types written after Goldsmith’s own years of travel on the Continent. In the poem’s moralizing panorama, Goldsmith repeatedly contrasts outward splendor with inward virtue, and he is especially alert to the manners of rank—how power and privilege advertise themselves in posture, dress, and bearing. The couplet occurs amid his observations of the great and powerful as they move through public life, emblematic figures in a broader argument about the limits of political systems and the common human pursuit of happiness.

Goldsmith compresses a social critique into a vivid snapshot: the elite are recognizable not by deeds but by performance—"port" (carriage) and a "defiance" that signals entitlement. Calling them "the lords of humankind" is at once descriptive and ironic, suggesting a class that assumes mastery over others while remaining merely human. The speaker’s "I see" frames the moment as an observer’s judgment rather than admiration, inviting readers to question whether pride and hauteur are mistaken for greatness. In the larger moral economy of Goldsmith’s poetry, the couplet underscores how status can harden into arrogance and how public display often substitutes for genuine merit or benevolence.