Looks out, effulgent, from amid the flush Of broken clouds, gay-shifting to his beam. The rapid radiance instantaneous strikes Th' illumin'd mountain, thro' the forest streams, Shakes on the floods, and in a yellow mist,
Far fmoaking o'er th' interminable plain, In twinkling myriads lights the dewy gems. Moist, bright, and green, the landscape laughs around. Full swell the woods; their every music wakes, Mix'd in wild concert with the warbling brooks Increas'd, the distant bleatings of the hills, And hollow lows responsive from the vales, Whence blending all the sweetened zephyr springs. Mean time refracted from yon' eaftern cloud, Bestriding 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 difssolving clouds Form, fronting on the sun, thy show'ry prifm, And to the sage-instructed eye unfold
The various twine of light, by thee disclos'd 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, amaz'd, Beholds th' amusive arch before him fly, Then vanish quite away. Still night fucceeds,
A softened shade, and faturated earth, Await the morning-beam, to give to light, Rais'd thro' 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 filent search, or thro' the foreft, rank With what the dull incurious weeds account, Bursts his blind way, or climbs the mountain-rock, Fir'd by the nodding verdure of its brow. With such a liberal hand has Nature flung
Their feeds abroad, blown them about in winds,230 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, 235 While yet he liv'd in innocence, and told A length of golden years, unflesh'd in blood, A ftranger 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 wak'd the gladden'd race
Of uncorrupted Man, nor blush'd to fee
The sluggard fleep beneath its facred beam;
For their light slumbers 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 tendence of the flock.
Mean time the fong went round; and dance and sport, Wisdom and friendly talk, successive, stole Their hours away; while in the rofy vale Love breath'd his infant sighs, from anguish free, And full replete with blifs, save 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, 255 For reafon and benevolence were law.
Harmonious Nature, too, look'd fmiling on. Clear shone the skies, cool'd with eternal gales, And balmy spirit all. The youthful Sun Shot his beft rays, and still the gracious clouds 260 Dropp'd fatness down, as o'er the fwelling mead The herds and flocks commixing play'd secure. This when, emergent from the gloomy wood, The glaring lion faw, his horrid heart Was meekened, and he join'd his fullen joy: 265 For music 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. 270 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 275 Which forms the foul of happiness, and all
Is off the poise within: the passions all
Have burst their bounds, and Reafon, half extinct,
Or impotent, or else approving, fees The foul diforder. Senseless and deform'd, Convulfive Anger storms at large; or, pale And filent, fettles 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. Even Love itself is bitterness of foul, A penfive anguish pining at the heart; Or, funk to fordid interest, feels no more That noble wish, that never-cloy'd defire Which, felfish joy disdaining, seeks alone To blefs the dearer object of its flame. Hope fickens with extravagance; and Grief, Of life impatient, into madness swells, Or in dead filence wastes 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 Disgust, 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 disparting orb that arch'd The central waters round impetuous rush'd, With univerfal burst, into the gulf, And o'er the high-pil'd hills of fractur'd earth Wide dash'd the waves, in undulation vast, Till, from the centre to the streaming clouds, A fhoreless ocean tumbled round the globe. The Seafons fince have, with feverer sway, Oppress'd a broken world: the Winter keen Shook forth his walte of fnows, and Summer shot His peftilential heats. Great Spring before Green'd all the year, and fruits and blossoms blush'd, In focial fweetness, on the self-fame bough. Pure was the temperate air; an even calm Perpetual reign'd, save what the zephyrs bland Breath'd o'er the blue expanfe: for then nor storms 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
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