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For their light flumbers gently fum'd away;
And up they rose as vigorous as the fun,
Or to the culture of the willing glebe,
Or to the cheerful tendance of the flock.

Mean time the fong went round; and dance and sport,
Wisdom and friendly talk fucceffive, ftole

Their hours away while in the rofy vale

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

Nor

yet injurious act, nor furly deed,

Was known among those happy fons of HEAVEN ;
For reafon and benevolence were law.

Harmonious Nature too look'd smiling on.
Clear fhone the skies, cool'd with eternal gales,
And balmy spirit all. The youthful sun
Shot his best rays, and ftill the gracious clouds
Dropp'd fatnefs down; as o'er the fwelling mead,
The herds and flocks, commixing, play'd fecure,
This when, emerging from the gloomy wood,
The glaring lion saw, his horrid heart
Was meeken'd, and he join'd his fullen joy.
For mufic held the whole in perfect peace:
Soft figh'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 confonance. Such were thofe prime of days.

But now thofe white unblemish'd manners, whence
The fabling poets took their golden age,
Are found no more amid these iron times,
Thefe dregs of life! Now the distemper'd mind
Has loft that concord of harmonious powers,
Which forms the foul of happiness; and all
Is off the poife within: the paffions all
Have burft their bounds; and reafon half extinct,
Or impotent, or else approving, fees

The foul diforder. Senfelefs, and deform'd,
Convulfive anger ftorms at large; or pale,
And filent, fettles into fell revenge.
Bafe envy withers at another's joy,

And hates that excellence it cannot reach.
Defponding fear, of feeble fancies full,
Weak and unmanly, loofens every power.
Even love itself is bitternefs of foul,
A pensive anguish pining at the heart;
Or, funk to fordid intereft, feels no more
That noble wish, that never cloy'd defire,
Which, felfifh joy difdaining, feeks alone
To blefs the dearer object of its flame.
Hope fickens with extravagance; and grief,

Of life impatient, into madness fwells;
Or in dead filence waftes the weeping hours.
Thefe, and a thoufand 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 difguft, and hatred, winding wiles,
Coward deceit, and ruffian violence:

At laft, extinct each focial feeling, fell
And joylefs inhumanity pervades

And petrifies the heart. Nature disturb'd
Is deem'd, vindictive, to have chang'd her course.
Hence, in old dufky time, a deluge came :
When the deep-cleft difparting orb, that arch'd
The central waters round, impetuous rush'd,
With univerfal 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 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; an even calm

Perpetual reign'd, fave what the zephyrs bland
Breath'd o'er the blue expanfe: or then nor ftorms
Were taught to blow, nor hurricanes to rage;
Sound slept the waters; no fulphureous glooms
Swell'd in the sky, and sent the lightning forth;
While fickly damps, and cold autumnal fogs,
Hung not, relaxing, on the springs 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 wholefome 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 whofe ftrong cheft the deadly tyger hangs,
E'er plow'd for him. They too are temper'd high,
With hunger ftung and wild neceffity,

Nor lodges pity in their shaggy breast.

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

With every

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 fweet fmiles, and looks erect on Heaven,
E'er ftoop to mingle with the prowling herd,
And dip his tongue in gore? The beaft 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 luscious 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, 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 fwell the riot of th' autumnal feast,

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