Till, in the western sky, the downward sun Looks out, effulgent, from amid the flush Of broken clouds, gay-shifting to his beam. The rapid radiance instantaneous strikes The' illumined mountain, through the forest streams, Shakes on the floods, and in a yellow mist, Far smoking o'er the' interminable plain, In twinkling myriads lights the dewy gems. Moist, bright, and green, the landscape laughs around. Full swell the woods; their very music wakes, Mix'd in wild concert with the warbling brooks Increased, the distant bleatings of the hills, And hollow lows responsive from the vales, Whence blending, all the sweeten'd zephyr springs. Meantime, refracted from yon eastern cloud, Bestriding earth, the grand etherial bow Shoots up immense; and every hue unfolds, In fair proportion running from the red To where the violet fades into the sky. Here, awful Newton, the dissolving clouds Form, fronting on the sun, thy showery prism; And to the sage-instructed eye unfold
The various twine of light, by thee disclosed From the white mingling maze. Not so the boy: He wondering views the bright enchantment bend, Delightful, o'er the radiant fields, and runs
To catch the falling glory; but amazed Beholds the' amusive arch before him fly, Then vanish quite away. Still night succeeds, A soften'd shade, and saturated earth Awaits the morning beam, to give to light,
Raised through ten thousand different plastic tubes, The balmy treasures of the former day.
Then spring the living herbs, profusely wild, O'er all the deep-green earth, beyond the power Of botanists to number up their tribes:
Whether he steals along the lonely dale, In silent search; or through the forest, rank With what the dull incurious weeds account, Bursts his blind way; or climbs the mountain rock, Fired by the nodding verdure of its brow.
With such a liberal hand has Nature flung Their seeds abroad, blown them about in winds, Innumerous mix'd them with the nursing mould, The moistening current, and prolific rain.
But who their virtues can declare? who pierce, With vision pure, into these secret stores Of health and life and joy? the food of Man, While yet he lived 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 waked the gladden'd race Of uncorrupted Man, nor blush'd to see
The sluggard sleep beneath its sacred beam;
For their light slumbers gently fumed away; And up they rose as vigorous as the sun, Or to the culture of the willing glebe
Or to the cheerful 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 breathed 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 happy 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 Dropp'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 meeken'd, 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
Applied 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. E'en 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 mix'd 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,
Cold, and averting from our neighbour'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 changed 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 gulf,
And o'er the high-piled bills of fractured earth Wide dash'd the waves, in undulation vast; Till, from the centre 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 selfsame bough. Pure was the temperate air; an even calm Perpetual reign'd, save what the zephyrs bland Breathed 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 toss'd, 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 bless'd. For, with hot ravine fired, ensanguined 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 chest the deadly tiger hangs, E'er plough'd for him. They too are temper'd high, With 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, and 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 the' autumnal feast, Won by his labour? thus the feeling heart Would tenderly suggest: 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-tinctured 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 watery stores prepare. But let not on thy hook the tortured 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.
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