Hope fickens with extravagance; and grief,
Of life impatient, into madness fwells;
Or in dead filence waftes 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 liftless unconcern,
Cold, and averting from our neighbour's good;
Then dark difguft, and hatred, winding wiles,
Coward deceit, and ruffian violence;
At laft, extinct each focial feeling, fell
And joyless inhumanity pervades
And petrifies the heart. Nature difturb'd
Is deem'd, vindictive, to have chang'd her course.
Hence, in old dusky time, a deluge came :
When the deep-cleft difparting orb, that arch'd
The central waters round, impetuous rush'd,
With univerfal burft, 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 ftreaming clouds,
A fhoreless ocean tumbled round the globe.
The Seafons fince have, with feverer sway, Opprefs'd a broken world: the Winter keen Shook forth his wafte of fnows; and Summer fhot His peftilential heats. Great Spring, before, Green'd all the year; and fruits and blossoms blush'd, In focial sweetness, on the felf-fame bough. Pure was the temperate air; and even calm
Perpetual reign'd, fave what the zephyrs bland
Breath'd o'er the blue expanse: for then nor ftorms
Were taught to blow, nor hurricanes to rage;
Sound flept the waters; no fulphureous glooms
Swell'd in the sky, and fent the lightning forth;
While fickly damps, and cold autumnal fogs,
Hung not, relaxing, on the fprings of life.
But now, of turbid elements the sport,
From clear to cloudy toft, from hot to cold,
And dry to moift, 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 foul
Of nutriment and health, and vital powers,
Beyond the search of art, 'tis copious bleft.
For, with hot ravine fir'd, enfanguin'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 drunk her milk,
Nor wore her warming fleece: nor has the steer,
At whose strong cheft the deadly tiger hangs,
E'er plough'd for him. They too are temper'd high, With hunger ftung and wild neceffity,
Nor lodges pity in their fhaggy 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: fhall he, fair form! Who wears sweet smiles, and looks erect on Heaven, E'er ftoop to mingle with the prowling herd,
And dip his tongue in gore? The beast of prey,
Blood-ftain'd, deferves to bleed: but you, ye flocks,
What have ye done; ye peaceful people, what,
To merit death? you, who have given us milk
In lufcious ftreams, and lent us your own coat
Against the winter's cold? And the plain ox,
That harmless, honeft, guilelefs animal,
In what has he offended? he, whofe toil,
Patient and ever ready, clothes the land
With all the pomp of harvest: shall he bleed,
And struggling groan beneath the cruel hands,
Ev'n of the clown he feeds? and that, perhaps,
To fwell the riot of th' autumnal feast,
Won by his labour? Thus the feeling heart
Would tenderly fuggeft: but 'tis enough,
In this late age, adventurous, to have touch'd
Light on the numbers of the Samian fage.
High Heaven forbids the bold presumptuous ftrain,
Whose wifeft will has fix'd us in a state
That must not yet to pure perfection rife.
Now when the first foul torrent of the brooks,
Swell'd with the vernal rains, is ebb'd away,
And, whitening, down their moffy-tinctur'd ftream
Defcends the billowy foam: now is the time,
While yet the dark-brown water aids the guile,
To tempt the trout. The well-diffembled fly,
The rod fine-tapering with elastic spring,
C
Snatch'd from the hoary fteed the floating line,
And all thy flender wat'ry ftores prepare.
But let not on thy hook the tortur'd worm,
Convulfive, twift in agonizing folds;
Which, by rapacions hunger fwallow'd deep,
Gives, as you tear it from the bleeding brea
Of the weak helpless uncomplaining wretch,
Harth pain, and horror to the tender hand.
When with his lively ray the potent
fun
Has pierc'd the streams, and rous'd the finny race,
Then iffuing chearful, to thy fport repair;
Chief fhould the western breezes curling play,
And light o'er æther bear the fhadowy clouds.
High to their fount, this day, amid the hills
And woodlands warbling round, trace up the brooks;
The next, pursue their rocky-channel'd maze,
Down to the river, in whofe ample wave
Their little Naiads love to sport at large.
Juft in the dubious point, where with the pool
Is mix'd the trembling ftream, or where it boils
Around the ftone, or from the hollow'd bank
Reverted plays in undulating flow,
There throw, nice-judging, the delufive fly;
And as you lead it round in artful curve,
With eye attentive mark the fpringing game.
Strait as above the surface of the flood
They wanton rife, or urg'd by hunger leap,
Then fix, with gentle twitch, the barbed hook: 410
Some lightly toffing to the graffy bank,
And to the shelving fhore, low-dragging fome,
With various hand proportion'd to their force.
If yet too young, and easily deceiv'd,
A worthless prey fearce bends your pliant rod,
Him, piteous of his youth and the short space
He has enjoy'd the vital light of Heaven,
Soft difengage, and back into the stream
The fpeckled captive throw. But fhould you lure
From his dark haunt, beneath the tangled roots
Of pendent trees, the monarch of the brook,
Behoves you then to ply your finest art.
Long time he, following cautious, fcans the fly;
And oft attempts to seize it, but as oft
The dimpled water fpeaks his jealous fear.
At last, while haply o'er the fhaded fun
Paffes a cloud, he defperate takes the death,
With fullen plunge. At once he darts along,
Deep-ftruck, and runs out all the lengthen'd line:
Then feeks the fartheft ooze, the fheltering weed, 430
The cavern'd bank, his old fecure abode ;
And flies aloft, and flounces round the pool,
Indignant of the guile. With yielding hand,
That feels him ftill, yet to his furious course,
Gives way, you, now retiring, following now,
Across the stream, exhauft his idle rage:
Till floating broad upon his breathlefs fide,
And to his fate abandon'd, to the shore
You gaily drag your unrefifting prize.
Thus pafs the temperate hours: but when the fun Shakes from his noon-day throne the scattering clouds, Ev'n fhooting listlefs languor through the deeps;
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