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

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The foul disorder. Senseless, and deform'd,

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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.
Ev'n love itself is bitterness of soul,
A pensive anguish pining at the heart t;
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 mixt emotions more,

From ever-changing views of good and ill,
Form'd infinitely various, vex the mind

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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

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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 universal 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 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,

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Green'd all the year; and fruits and blossoms blush'd,

In social sweetness on the self-same bough.

Pure was the temp'rate air; an even calm

Perpetual reign'd, save what the zephyrs bland

Breath'd o'er the blue expanse; for then nor storms

Were taught to blow, nor hurricanes to rage;
Sound slept the waters: No sulphureous glooms

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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 tost, 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 blest.
For, with hot ravine fir'd, ensanguin'd Man
Is now become the lion of the plain,

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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 tyger hangs,
E'er plow'd for him. They too are temper'd high, 345
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 350

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,

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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

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With all the pomp of harvest; shall he bleed,

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And struggling groan beneath the cruel hands
Ev'n of the clown he feeds? and that, perhaps,
To swell the riot of th' 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

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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.

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Now when the first foul torrent of the brooks,

Swell'd with the vernal rains, is ebb'd away;
And, whitening, down their mossy-tinctur'd stream
Descends the billowy foam: Now is the time,
While yet the dark-brown water aids the guile,

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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 watry stores prepare.
But let not on thy hook the tortur'd 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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WHEN with his lively ray the potent sun Has pierc'd the streams, and rous'd the finny race, Then, issuing cheerful, to thy sport repair; Chief should the western breezes curling play, And light o'er ether bear the shadowy clouds, High to their fount, this day, amid their hills, And woodlands warbling round, trace up the brooks; The next, pursue their rocky-channel'd maze,

Down to the river, in whose ample wave

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Their little naiads love to sport at large.

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JUST in the dubious point, where with the pool,

Is mix'd the trembling stream, or where it boils
Around the stone, or from the hollow'd bank
Reverted plays in undulating flow,
There throw, nice-judging, the delusive fly;
And as you lead it round in artful curve,
With eye attentive mark the springing game.

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