In the primeval age a dateless while
The vacant Shepherd wandered with his flock, Pitching his tent where'er the green grass waved. But soon Imagination conjured up
A host of new desires: with busy aim, Each for himself, Earth's eager children toiled. So Property began, twy-streaming fount, Whence Vice and Virtue flow, honey and gall. Hence the soft couch, and many-coloured robe, The timbrel, and arch'd dome and costly feast, With all the inventive arts, that nursed the soul To forms of beauty, and by sensual wants Unsensualized the mind which in the means Agrady Learnt to forget the grosses of the thy the end was Best pleasured with its own activityseit.
sensual wantton Jonenes
And hence Disease that withers manhood's arm, The daggered Envy, spirit-quenching Want, Warriors, and Lords, and Priests-all the sore ills That vex and desolate our mortal life.
Wide-wasting ills! yet each the immediate source Of mightier good. Their keen necessities To ceaseless action goading human thought Have made Earth's reasoning animal her Lord; And the pale-featured Sage's trembling hand Strong as a host of armed Deities,
Such as the blind Ionian fabled erst.
From avarice thus, from luxury and war, Sprang heavenly science; and from science freedom. O'er wakened realms Philosophers and Bards
Spread in concentric circles: they whose souls, Conscious of their high dignities from God, Brook not wealth's rivalry! and they who long Enamoured with the charms of order hate The unseemly disproportion: and whoe'er Turn with mild sorrow from the victor's car And the low puppetry of thrones, to muse On that blest triumph, when the patriot Sage Called the red lightnings from the o'er-rushing
And dashed the beauteous terrors on the earth Smiling majestic. Such a phalanx ne'er Measured firm paces to the calming sound Of Spartan flute! These on the fated day, When, stung to rage by pity, eloquent men Have roused with pealing voice the unnumbered tribes
That toil and groan and bleed, hungry and blind,— These hushed awhile with patient eye serene Shall watch the mad careering of the storm; Then o'er the wild and wavy chaos rush And tame the outrageous mass, with plastic might Moulding confusion to such perfect forms
As erst were wont,-bright visions of the day!—— To float before them, when, the summer noon, Beneath some arch'd romantic rock reclined, They felt the sea-breeze lift their youthful locks; Or in the month of blossoms, at mild eve, Wandering with desultory feet, inhaled
The wafted perfumes, and the flocks and woods,
And many-tinted streams, and setting sun, With all his gorgeous company of clouds, Ecstatic gazed! then homeward as they strayed Cast the sad eye to earth, and inly mused Why there was misery in a world so fair. Ah! far removed from all that glads the sense, From all that softens or ennobles Man, The wretched Many! Bent beneath their loads They gape at pageant Power, nor recognize Their cots' transmuted plunder! From the tree Of Knowledge, ere the vernal sap had risen, Rudely disbranched! Blest Society! Fitliest depictured by some sun-scorched waste, Where oft majestic through the tainted noon The Simoom sails, before whose purple pomp Who falls not prostrate dies! And where by night, Fast by each precious fountain on green herbs The lion couches; or hyæna dips
Deep in the lucid stream his bloody jaws;
Or serpent plants his vast moon-glittering bulk, Caught in whose monstrous twine Behemoth* yells, His bones loud-crashing!
Whom foul oppression's ruffian gluttony [wretch Drives from life's plenteous feast! O thou poor
Behemoth, in Hebrew, signifies wild beasts in general. Some believe is the elephant, some the hippopotamus; soine affirm it is the wild bull. Poetically, it designates any large quadruped.
Who, nursed in darkness and made wild by want, Roamest for prey, yea thy unnatural hand Dost lift to deeds of blood! O pale-eyed form, The victim of seduction, doomed to know Polluted nights and days of blasphemy; Who in loathed orgies with lewd wassailers Must gaily laugh, while thy remembered home Gnaws like a viper at thy secret heart! O aged women! ye who weekly catch The morsel tossed by law-forced charity, And die so slowly, that none call it murder! O loathly suppliants! ye, that unreceived Totter heart-broken from the closing gates Of the full Lazar-house: or, gazing, stand Sick with despair! O ye to glory's field Forced or ensnared, who, as ye gasp in death, Bleed with new wounds beneath the vulture's
O thou poor widow, who in dreams dost view Thy husband's mangled corse, and from short doze Start'st with a shriek; or in thy half-thatched cot, Waked by the wintry night-storm, wet and cold, Cow' r'st o'er thy screaming baby! Rest awhile, Children of wretchedness! More groans must rise,
More blood must stream, or ere your wrongs be full.
Yet is the day of retribution nigh:
The Lamb of God hath opened the fifth seal:
And upward rush on swiftest wing of fire
The innumerable multitude of Wrongs By man on man inflicted! Rest awhile, Children of wretchedness! The hour is nigh; And lo! the great, the rich, the mighty Men, The Kings and the chief Captains of the World, With all that fixed on high like stars of Heaven Shot baleful influence, shall be cast to earth, Vile and down-trodden, as the untimely fruit Shook from the fig-tree by a sudden storm. Even now the storm begins:* each gentle name, Faith and meek Piety, with fearful joy Tremble far-off-for lo! the giant Frenzy, Uprooting empires with his whirlwind arm, Mocketh high Heaven; burst hideous from the cell
Where the old Hag, unconquerable, huge,
Creation's eyeless drudge, black ruin, sits Nursing the impatient earthquake.
Pure Faith! meek Piety! The abhorred Form Whose scarlet robe was stiff with earthly pomp, Who drank iniquity in cups of gold,
Whose names were many and all blasphemous, Hath met the horrible judgment! Whence that cry?
The mighty army of foul Spirits shrieked Disherited of earth! For she hath fallen
* Alluding to the French Revolution.
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