Far fmoking o'er th' interminable plain,
In twinkling myriads lights the dewy gems.
Moift, bright, and green, the landskip laughs around.
Full fwell the woods; their very music wakes,
Mix'd in wild concert with the warbling brooks
Increas'd, the distant bleatings of the hills,
And hollow lows refponfive from the vales,
Whence blending all the fweetened zephyr fprings.
Mean time refracted from yon eastern cloud,
Beftriding earth, the grand ethereal bow
Shoots up immenfe; and every hue unfolds,
In fair proportion running from the red,
To where the violet fades into the sky.
Here, awful NEWTON, the diffolving clouds
Form, fronting on the fun, thy showery prism;
And to the fage-inftructed eye unfold
The various twine of light, by thee disclos'd
From the white mingling maze.
He wondering views the bright enchantment bend,
Delightful, o'er the radiant fields, and runs
To catch the falling glory; but amaz'd
Beholds th' amusive arch before him fly,
Then vanish quite away. Still night fucceeds,
A foftened fhade, and faturated earth
Awaits the morning-beam, to give to light,
Rais'd thro' ten thoufand different plaftic tubes,
The balmy treafures of the former day.
Then fpring the living herbs, profufely wild,
O'er all the deep-green earth, beyond the power
Of botanist to number up their tribes :
Whether he steals along the lonely dale,
In filent fearch; or thro' the foreft, rank
With what the dull incurious weeds account,
Burfts his blind way; or climbs the mountain-rock,
Fir'd by the nodding verdure of its brow.
With fuch a liberal hand has Nature flung
Their feeds abroad, blown them about in winds,
Innumerous mix'd them with the nursing mold,
The moistening current, and prolific rain.
But who their virtues can declare? who pierce,
With vifion pure, into these secret stores
Of health, and life, and joy? the food of Man,
While yet he liv'd in innocence, and told
A length of golden years; unflesh'd in blood,
A ftranger to the favage arts of life,
Death, rapine, carnage, furfeit, and difeafe;
The lord, and not the tyrant, of the world.
The first fresh dawn then wak'd the gladdened rac
Of uncorrupted Man, nor blufh'd to fee
The fluggard fleep beneath its facred beam :
For their light flumbers gently fum'd away;
And up they rofe as vigorous as the fun,
Or to the culture of the willing glebe,
Or to the chearful tendance of the flock.
Meantime 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 anguifh 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.
cool'd with eternal gales,
Shot his best rays, and ftill the gracious clouds
Drop'd fatnefs down; as o'er the swelling mead,
The herds and flocks, commixing, play'd fecure.
This when, emergent from the gloomy wood,
The glaring lion faw, his horrid heart
Was meekened, 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 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 loft that concord of harmonious powers,
Which forms the foul of happinefs; and all
Is off the poife within: the paffions all
Have burft their bounds; and reason half extinct,
Or impotent, or elfe 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 bitterness of foul,
A pensive anguish pining at the heart;
Or, funk to fordid intereft, feels no more
That noble wifh, 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.
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,
Cold, and averting from our neighbour's good;
Then dark difguft, and hatred, winding wiles,
Coward deceit, and ruffian violence:
At last, extinct each focial 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 difparting orb, that arch'd
The central waters round, impetuous rufh'd,
With univerfal burft, into the gulph,
And o'er the high-pil'd hills of fractur'd earth
Wide dafh'd the waves, in undulation vast;
Till, from the center to the streaming clouds,
A fhoreless ocean tumbled round the globe.
The Seafons fince have, with feverer fway,
Opprefs'd a broken world: the Winter keen
Shook forth his waste of fnows; and Summer fhot
His peftilential heats. Great Spring, before,
Green'd all the year; and fruits and bloffoms blush'd,
In social sweetness, on the self-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: for then nor ftorms
Were taught to blow, nor hurricanes to rage;
Sound flept the waters; no fulphureous glooms
Swell'd in the fky, 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 fearch of art, 'tis copious bleft.
For, with hot ravine fir'd, enfanguin'd Man
Is now become the lion of the plain,
And worfe. 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 fteer,
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,
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 luscious ftreams, and lent us your own coat
Against the winter's cold? And the plain ox,
That harmless, honeft, guileless animal,
In what has he offended? he, whofe toil,
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