While yet he liv'd in innocence, and told
A length of golden years; unflesh'd in blood,
A stranger to the savage arts of life,

Death, rapine, carnage, surfeit, and disease;
The lord, and not the tyrant, of the world.

THE first fresh dawn then wak'd the gladdened race Of uncorrupted Man, nor blush'd to see The sluggard sleep beneath its sacred beam : For their light slumbers gently fum'd away; And up they rose as vigorous as the sun, Or to the culture of the willing glebe, Or to the chearful tendance of the flock. Meantime the song went round; and dance and sport Wisdom and friendly talk, successive, stole

Their hours away : while in the rosy vale

Love breath'd his infant sighs, from anguish free,
And full replete with bliss; save the sweet pain,
That, inly thrilling, but exalts it more.

Nor yet injurious act, nor surly deed,

Was known among those kappy sons of HEAVEN ;
For reason and benevolence were law.
Harmonious Nature too look'd smiling on.

Clear shone the skies, cool'd with eternal gales,
And balmy spirit all. The youthful sun

Shot his best rays, and still the gracious clouds
Drop'd fatness down; as o'er the swelling mead,
The herds and flocks, commixing, play'd secure.
This when, emergent from the gloomy wood,
The glaring lion saw, his horrid heart
Was meekened, and he join❜d his sullen joy.
For music held the whole in perfect peace:

Soft sigh'd the flute; the tender voice was heard,
Warbling the varied heart; the woodlands round
Apply'd their quire; and winds and waters flow'd
In consonance. Such were those prime of days.

BUT now those white unblemish'd manners, whence
The fabling poets took their golden age,
Are found no more amid these iron times,
These dregs of life! Now the distemper'd mind
Has lost that concord of harmonious powers,
Which forms the soul of happiness; and all
Is off the poise within: the passions all
Have burst their bounds; and reason half extinct,
Or impotent, or else approving, sees
The foul disorder. Senseless, and deform'd,
Convulsive anger storms at large; or pale,
And silent, settles into fell revenge.
Base envy withers at another's joy,
And hates that excellence it cannot reach.
Desponding fear, of feeble fancies full,
Weak and unmanly, loosens every power.
Even love itself is bitterness of soul,
A pensive anguish pining at the heart;
Or, sunk to sordid interest, feels no more
That noble wish, that never cloy'd desire,
Which, selfish joy disdaining, seeks alone
To bless the dearer object of its flame.
Hope sickens with extravagance; and grief,
Of life impatient, into madness swells;
Or in dead silence wastes the weeping hours.
These, and a thousand mixt emotions more,
From ever-changing views of good and ill,

Form'd infinitely various, vex the mind

With endless storm: whence, deeply rankling, grows
The partial thought, a listless unconcern,
Gold, and averting from our neigbour's good;
Then dark disgust, and hatred, winding wiles,
Coward deceit, and ruffian violence :

At last, extinct each social feeling, fell
And joyless inhumanity pervades

And petrifies the heart. Nature disturb'd

Is deem'd, vindictive, to have chang'd her course.
HENCE, in old dusky time, a deluge came :
When the deep-cleft disparting orb, that arch'd
The central waters round, impetuous rush'd,
With universal burst, into the gulph,

And o'er the high-pil'd hills of fractur'd earth
Wide dash'd the waves, in undulation vast;
Till, from the center to the streaming clouds,
A shoreless ocean tumbled round the globe.

THE Seasons since have, with severer sway,
Oppress'd a broken world: the Winter keen
Shook forth his waste of snows; and Summer shot
His pestilential heats. Great Spring, before,
Green'd all the year; and fruits and blossoms blush'd,
In social sweetness, on the self-same bough.

Pure was the temperate air ; an even calm
Perpetual reign'd; save what the zephyrs bland
Breath'd o'er the blue expanse : for then nor storms
Were taught to blow, nor hurricanes to rage;
Sound slept the waters; no sulphureous glooms
Swell'd in the sky, and sent the lightning forth;
While sickly damps, and cold autumnal fogs,

Hung not, relaxing, on the springs of life.
But now of turbid elements the

sport,

From clear to cloudy tost, from hot to cold,
And dry to moist, with inward-eating change,
Our drooping days are dwindled down to nought,
Their period finish'd ere 'tis well begun.

AND yet the wholesome herb neglected dies;
Though with the pure exhilarating soul
Of nutriment and health, and vital powers,
Beyond the search of art, 'tis copious blest.
For, with hot ravine fir'd, ensanguin'd Man
Is now become the lion of the plain,

And worse. The wolf, who from the nightly fold
Fierce drags the bleating prey, ne'er drank her milk,
Nor wore her warming fleece: nor has the steer,
At whose strong chest the deadly tyger hangs,
E'er plow'd for him. They too are temper'd high,
Wish hunger stung and wild necessity,

Nor lodges pity in their shaggy breast.

But Man, whom Nature form'd of milder clay,
With every kind emotion in his heart,

And taught alone to weep; while from her lap
She pours ten thousand delicacies, herbs,
And fruits, as numerous as the drops of rain
Or beams that gave them birth : shall he, fair form!
Who wears sweet smiles, and looks erect on Heaven,
E'er stoop to mingle with the prowling herd,
And dip his tongue in gore? The beast of prey,
Blood-stain'd, deserves to bleed: but you, ye flocks,
What have you done; ye peaceful people, what,
To merit death? you, who have given us milk

In luscious streams, aud lent us your own coat
Against the winter's cold? And the plain ox,
That harmless, honest, guileless animal,
In what has he offended? he, whose toil,
Patient and ever ready, clothes the land
With all the pomp of harvest; shall he bleed,
And struggling groan beneath the cruel hands
Even of the clown he feeds? and that, perhaps,
To swell the riot of th' autumnal feast,
Won by his labour? Thus the feeling heart
Would tenderly suggeat: but 'tis enough,
In this late age, adventurous, to have touch'd
Light on the numbers of the Samian Sage.
High HEAVEN forbids the bold presumptuous strain,
Whose wisest will has fix'd us in a state

That must not yet to pure perfection rise.

Now when the first foul torrent of the brooks, Swell'd with the vernal rains, is ebb'd away, And, whitening, down their mossy-tinctur'd stream Descends the billowy foam : now is the time, While yet the dark-brown water aids the guile, To tempt the trout. The well-dissembled fly, The rod fine-tapering with elastic spring, Snatch'd from the hoary steed the floating line, And all thy slender watry stores prepare. But let not on thy hook the tortur'd worm, Convulsive, twist in agonizing folds; Which, by rapacious hunger swallow'd deep, Gives, as you tear it from the bleeding breast Of the weak helpless uncomplaining wretch, Harsh pain and horror to the tender hand,