In twinkling myriads lights the dewy gems.
Moist, bright, and green, the landscape laughs
Full swell 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 responsive from the vales,
Whence blending all the sweeten'd zephyr springs.
Mean-time, refracted from yon eastern cloud,
Bestriding earth, the grand ethereal bow
Shoots up immense; and ev'ry hue unfolds,
In fair proportion running from the red,
To where the violet fades into the sky.
Here, awful Newton, the dissolving clouds
Form, fronting on the sun, thy show'ry prism;
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 wond'ring views the bright inchantment 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 succeeds,
A soften'd shade, and saturated earth
Awaits the morning beam, to give to light,
Rais'd through ten thousand diff'rent 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 pow'r
Of botanist to number up their tribes:
Whether he steals along the lonely dale,
In silent search; or through the forest, rank
With what the dull incurious weeds account,
Bursts his blind way; or climbs the mountain
Fir'd by the nodding verdure of its brow.
With such a lib'ral hand has nature flung
Their seeds abroad, blown them about in winds,
Innum'rous mix'd them with the nursing mould,
The moist❜ning 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, While yet he liv'd in innocence, and told A length of golden years; unflesh'd in blood, A stranger 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
Of uncorrupted man, nor blush'd to see
The sluggard sleep beneath its sacred beam:
For their light slumbers gently fum'd away;
And up they rose as vig'rous as the sun,
Or to the culture of the willing glebe,
Or to the cheerful tendance of the flock.
Mean-time the song went round; and dance and
Wisdom and friendly talk successive, stole
Their hours away: while in the rosy vale
Love breath'd his infant sighs, from anguish free,
And full replete with bliss; save the sweet pain, That inly thrilling, but exalts it more.
Nor yet injurious act, nor surly deed,
Was known among those happy sons of heav'n; For reason and benevolence were law. Harmonious nature too look'd smiling on.
Clear shone the skies, cool'd with eternal gales,
And balmy spirit all. The youthful sun
Shot his best rays, and still the gracious clouds
Dropp'd fatness down, as o'er the swelling mead
The herds and flocks, commixing, play'd secure:
This when, emerging from the gloomy wood,
The glaring lion saw, his horrid heart
Was meeken'd, and he join'd his sullen joy.
For music held the whole in perfect peace:
Soft sigh'd the flute; the tender voice was heard,
Warbling the varied heart; the woodlands round
Applied their quire; and winds and waters flow'd
Such were those prime of days.
But now those white unblemish'd manners,
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 lost that concord of harmonious pow'rs,
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
The foul disorder. Senseless, and deform'd,
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 ev'ry pow'r.
E'en love itself is bitterness of soul,
A pensive anguish pining at the heart;
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 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,
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:
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