Fierce Boreas with his offspring iffues forth,
T'invade the frozen waggon of the North.
While frowning Auster seeks the fouthern sphere,
And rots, with endless rain, th' unwholfome year.
High o'er the clouds, and empty realms of wind,
The God a clearer space for heaven defign'd;
Where fields of light and liquid æther flow,
Purg'd from the ponderous dregs of earth below.
Scarce had the power diftinguifh'd thefe, when ftraight
The stars, no longer overlaid with weight,
Exert their heads from underneath the mafs,
And upward fhoot, and kindle as they pafs,
And with diffufive light adorn the heavenly place.
Then, every void of nature to fupply,
With forms of Gods he fills the vacant sky:
New herds of beafts he fends, the plains to fhare;
New colonies of birds, to people air;
And to their oozy beds the finny fish repair.
A creature of a more exalted kind
Was wanting yet, and then was man defign'd:
Confcious of thought, of more capacious breast,
For empire form'd, and fit to rule the rest :
Whether with particles of heavenly fire
The God of nature did his foul infpire;
Or earth, but new divided from the sky,
And pliant ftill, retain'd th' ætherial energy:
Which wife Prometheus temper'd into pafte,
And, mixt with living ftreams, the godlike image caft. Thus, while the mute creation downward bend
Their fight, and to their earthly mother tend,
Man looks aloft, and with erected eyes
Beholds his own hereditary skies.
From fuch rude principles our form began,
And earth was metamorphos'd into man.
THE GOLDEN AGE.
The golden age was firft; when man, yet new,
No rule but uncorrupted reason knew;
And, with a native bent, did good purfue.
Unforc'd by punishment, unaw'd by fear,
His words were fimple, and his foul fincere :
Needlefs was written- law, where none oppreft;
The law of man was written in his breaft:
No fuppliant crowds before the judge appear'd;
No court erected yet, nor caufe was heard ;
But all was fafe, for confcience was their guard.
The mountain-trees in diftant prospect please,
Ere yet the pine defcended to the feas;
Ere fails were spread, new oceans to explore;
And happy mortals, unconcern'd for more,
Confin'd their wishes to their native shore.
No walls were yet, nor fence, nor mote, nor mound;
Nor drum was heard, nor trumpet's angry found :
Nor fwords were forg'd; but, void of care and crime,
The foft creation slept away their time.
The teeming earth, yet guiltlefs of the plough,
And unprovok'd, did fruitful stores allow :
Content with food, which nature freely bred,
On wildings and on ftrawberries they fed ;
Cornels and bramble-herries gave the rest,
And falling acorns furnish'd out a feast.
The flowers unfown in fields and meadows reign'd;
And western winds immortal Spring maintain'd.
In following years the bearded corn enfued
From earth unafk'd, nor was that earth renew'd.
From veins of vallies milk and nectar broke;
And honey sweating through the pores of oak.
THE SILVER AGE.
But when good Saturn, banish'd from above,
Was driven to hell, the world was under Jove.
Succeeding times a filver age behold,
Excelling brass, but more excell'd by gold.
Then Summer, Autumn, Winter, did appear;
And Spring was but a feason of the year.
The fun his annual courie obliquely made,
Good days contracted, and enlarg'd the bad.
Then air with fultry heats began to glow,
The wings of winds were clog'd with ice and snow;
And fhivering mortals, into houfes driven,
Sought fhelter from th' inclemency of heaven.
Thofe houses, then, were caves, or homely fheds,
With twining oziers fenc'd, and mofs their beds.
Then ploughs, for feed, the fruitful furrows broke,
And oxen labour'd first beneath the yoke.
THE BRAZEN AGE.
To this next came in course the brazen age, A warlike offspring, prompt to bloody rage, Not impious yet
THE IRON AGE.
Hard fteel fucceeded then;
And ftubborn as the metal were the men.
Truth, Modefty, and Shame, the world forfook:
Fraud, Avarice, and Force, their places took.
Then fails were spread to every wind that blew;
Raw were the failors, and the depths were new :
Trees rudely hollow'd, did the waves fuftain :
Ere fhips in triumph plough'd the watery plain.
Then land-marks limited to each his right:
For all before was common as the light.
Nor was the ground alone requir'd to bear
Her annual income to the crooked fhare;
But greedy mortals, rummaging her store,
Digg'd from her entrails first the precious ore;
Which next to hell the prudent Gods had laid;
And that alluring ill to fight difplay'd;
Thus curfed fteel, and more accurfed gold,
Gave mifchief birth, and made that mifchief bold:
And double death did wretched man invade,
By steel affaulted, and by gold betray'd.
Now (brandish'd weapons glittering in their hands)
Mankind is broken loofe from moral bands;
No rights of hofpitality remain :
The guest, by him who harbour'd him, is flain :
The fon-in-law purfues the father's life:
The wife her husband murders, he the wife.
The ftep-dame poifon for the fon prepares,
The fon inquires into his father's years.
Faith flies, and Piety in exile mourns ;
And Justice, here opprest, to heaven returns.
THE GIANTS WAR.
Nor were the Gods themselves more safe above;
Against beleaguer'd heaven the giants move.
Hills pil'd on hills, on mountains mountains lie,
To make their mad approaches to the iky.
Till Jove, no longer patient, took his time
T'avenge with thunder their audacious crime :
Red lightning play'd along the firmament,
And their demolish'd works to pieces rent.
Sing'd with the flames, and with the bolts transfix`d,
With native earth their blood the monsters mix'd;
The blood, indued with animating heat,
Did in th' impregnate earth new fons beget :
They, like the feed from which they sprung, accurft,
Against the Gods immortal hatred nurst:
An impious, arrogant, and cruel brood;
Expreffing their original from blood.
Which when the king of Gods beheld from high
(Withal revolving in his memory,
What he himself had found on earth of late,
Lycaon's guilt, and his inhuman treat)
He figh'd, nor longer with his pity strove;
But kindled to a wrath becoming Jove;
Then call'd a general council of the Gods;
Who, fummon'd, iffue from their bleft abodes,
And fill th' affembly with a fhining train,
A way there is, in heaven's expanded plain,
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