Innumerous mixed them with the nursing mould, The moistening current, and prolific rain.
VARIOUS USES OF PLANTS. VEGETABLE DIET.
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 lived in innocence, and told, A length of golden years; unfleshed 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 GOLDEN AGE OF INNOCENCE.
MORNING IN THE GOLDEN AGE. LOVE AND HAPPINESS.
The first fresh dawn then waked the gladdened race Of uncorrupted Man, nor blushed to see The sluggard sleep beneath its sacred beam; For their light slumbers gently fumed away,
And up they rose as vigorous as the sun, Or to the culture of the willing glebe, Or to the cheerful tendance of the flock. Meantime the song went round; and dance and sport," Wisdom, and friendly talk, successive, stole Their hours away: while in the rosy vale Love breathed 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 Heaven; For reason and benevolence were law.
HARMONY OF ALL NATURE IN THE GOLDEN AGE; MUSIC.
Harmonious Nature, too, looked smiling on: Clear shone the skies, cooled with eternal gales, And balmy spirit all. The youthful sun Shot his best rays, and still the gracious clouds Dropped fatness down; as o'er the swelling mead The herds and flocks, commixing, played secure. This when, emergent from the gloomy wood, The glaring lion saw, his horrid heart Was meekened, and he joined his sullen joy; For music held the whole in perfect peace: Soft sighed the flute; the tender voice was heard, Warbling the varied heart; the woodlands round Applied their choir; and winds and waters flowed In consonance. Such were those prime of days.
THE PRESENT AGE CONTRASTED WITH THE AGE OF INNOCENCE. ANGER. REVENGE. ENVY. - FEAR.- SELFISH LOVE. GRIEF.
But now those white, unblemished manners, whence The fabling poets took their golden age, Are found no more amid these iron times, These dregs of life! now the distempered 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 The foul disorder. Senseless and deformed,
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. 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-cloyed 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.
VARIOUS CURSES BORN OF SELFISHNESS. DISGUST.HATRED. DECEIT. VIOLENCE. INHUMANITY. - HENCE THE DELUGE.
These, and a thousand mixed emotions more, From ever-changing views of good and ill, Formed infinitely various, vex the mind With endless storm: whence, deeply rankling, grows The partial thought, a listless unconcern, Cold, and averting from our neighbor'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 disturbed Is deemed, vindictive, to have changed her course. Hence, in old dusky time, a deluge came : When the deep-cleft disparting orb, that arched The central waters round, impetuous rushed, With universal burst, into the gulf, And o'er the high-piled hills of fractured earth Wide dashed the waves, in undulation vast: Till, from the centre to the streaming clouds, A shoreless ocean tumbled round the globe.
THE SEASONS CHANGED BY THE FLOOD. WINTER SNOWS; SUMMER HEATS; STORMS, FOGS; LIFE SHORTENED.
The seasons since have, with severer sway, Oppressed a broken world. The Winter keen Shook forth his waste of snows; and Summer shot His pestilential heats. Great Spring, before, Greened all the year, and fruits and blossoms blushed, In social sweetness, on the self-same bough. Pure was the temperate air; an even calm Perpetual reigned, save that the zephyrs bland Breathed o'er the blue expanse ; for then nor storms Were taught to blow, nor hurricanes to rage; Sound slept the waters; no sulphureous glooms Swelled 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 tossed, from hot to cold, And dry to moist, with inward-eating change, Our drooping days are dwindled down to naught, Their period finished ere 't is well begun.
THE EATING OF ANIMAL FOOD BY MAN REPROBATED; PLEA AGAINST THE SLAUGHTER OF SHEEP AND CATTLE FOR FOOD. -PYTHAGORAS.
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, 't is copious blest. For, with hot ravine fired, ensanguined man
Is now become the lion of the plain,
And worse. The wolf, who from the nightly fold Fierce drags the bleating prey, ne'er drank her milk, Nor wore her warming fleece; nor has the steer, At whose strong chest the deadly tiger hangs, E'er ploughed for him. They too are tempered high, With hunger stung and wild necessity, Nor lodges pity in their shaggy breast.
But man, whom Nature formed of milder clay, With every kind emotion in his heart, And taught alone to weep; while from her lap She pours ten thousand delicacies, herbs, And fruits, as numerous as the drops of rain, shall he, fair form! Or beams that gave them birth Who wears sweet smiles, and looks erect on heaven, E'er stoop to mingle with the prowling herd, And dip his tongue in gore? The beast of prey, Blood-stained, 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 With all the pomp of harvest; shall he bleed, And struggling groan beneath the cruel hands E'en of the clown he feeds? and that, perhaps, To swell the riot of the autumnal feast, Won by his labor? Thus the feeling heart Would tenderly suggest but 't is enough, In this late age, adventurous, to have touched Light on the numbers of the Samian sage.1 High Heaven forbids the bold, presumptuous strain, Whose wisest will has fixed us in a state That must not yet to pure perfection rise.
TROUT-FISHING. THE STREAM; PREPARATIONS; CRUELTY OF WORM-BAITING.
Now, when the first foul torrent of the brooks Swelled with the vernal rains, is ebbed away; And, whitening, down their mossy-tinctured stream -now is the time, Descends the billowy foam While yet the dark-brown water aids the guile, To tempt the trout. The well-dissembled fly, The rod fine-tapering with elastic spring, Snatched from the hoary steed the floating line, And all thy slender, watery stores prepare. But let not on thy hook the tortured worm, Convulsive, twist in agonizing folds;
1 Pythagoras, a native of the island of Samos. A rhythmical fragment of precepts, called "Golden Verses," is ascribed to him.
Which, by rapacious hunger swallowed deep, Gives, as you tear it from the bleeding breast Of the weak, helpless, uncomplaining wretch, Harsh pain and horror to the tender hand.
DIRECTIONS TO THE TROUT-FISHER. WHEN TO FISH AND HOW.SMALL FISH TO BE RETURNED TO THE WATER.
When with his lively ray the potent sun Has pierced the streams, and roused 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 the hills, And woodlands warbling round, trace up the brooks; The next, pursue their rocky-channelled maze, Down to the river, in whose ample wave The little naiads love to sport at large. Just in the dubious point, where with the pool Is mixed the trembling stream, or where it boils Around the stone, or from the hollowed 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. Straight as above the surface of the flood They wanton rise, or urged by hunger leap, Then fix, with gentle twitch, the barbéd hook; Some lightly tossing to the grassy bank, And to the shelving shore slow-dragging some, With various hand proportioned to their force. If yet too young, and easily deceived,
A worthless prey scarce bends your pliant rod, Him, piteous of his youth and the short space He has enjoyed the vital light of heaven, Soft disengage, and back into the stream The speckled captive throw.
DESCRIPTION OF THE MANNER OF PLAYING THE TROUT.
But should you lure From his dark haunt, beneath the tangled roots Of pendent trees, the monarch of the brook, Behoves you then to ply your finest art. Long time he, following cautious, scans the fly; And oft attempts to seize it, but as oft The dimpled water speaks his jealous fear. At last, while haply o'er the shaded sun Passes a cloud, he, desperate, takes the death, With sullen plunge. At once he darts along, Deep struck, and runs out all the lengthened line; Then seeks the farthest ooze, the sheltering weed, The caverned bank, his old secure abode ; And flies aloft, and flounces round the pool, Indignant of the guile. With yielding hand, That feels him still, yet to his furious course Gives way, you, now retiring, following now, Across the stream, exhaust his idle rage; Till floating broad upon his breathless side, And to his fate abandoned, to the shore You gayly drag your unresisting prize.
HOW TO PASS THE SPRING NOON. THE FLOWERY BANK.THE CULVER; HAWK. THE CLIFF; PROSPECT. — REVERIES.
Thus pass the temperate hours; but when the sun Shakes from his noon-day throne the scattering clouds,
E'en shooting listless languor through the deeps, Then seek the bank where flowering elders crowd, Where scattered wild the lily of the vale
Its balmy essence breathes, where cowslips hang The dewy head, where purple violets lurk, With all the lowly children of the shade : Or lie reclined beneath yon spreading ash,
Hung o'er the steep; whence, borne on liquid wing, The sounding culver shoots; or where the hawk, High, in the beetling cliff, his eyry builds. There let the classic page thy fancy lead Through rural scenes, such as the Mantuan swain1 Paints in the matchless harmony of song ; Or catch thyself the landscape, gliding swift Athwart imagination's vivid eye;
Or by the vocal woods and waters lulled, And lost in lonely musing, in the dream, Confused, of careless solitude, where mix Ten thousand wandering images of things, Soothe every gust of passion into peace; All but the swellings of the softened heart, That waken, not disturb, the tranquil mind.
THE SPRING LANDSCAPE INDESCRIBABLY BEAUTIFUL.
Behold yon breathing prospect bids the Muse Throw all her beauty forth. But who can paint Like Nature? Can imagination boast, Amidst its gay creation, hues like hers? Or can it mix them with that matchless skill, And lose them in each other, as appears In every bud that blows? If fancy, then, Unequal fails beneath the pleasing task,
Ah, what shall language do? ah, where find words Tinged with so many colors, and whose power, To life approaching, may perfume my lays With that fine oil, those aromatic gales, That inexhaustive flow continual round?
LOVE; AMANDA; MORNING WALK WITH HER, GATHERING FLOWERS.
Yet, though successless, will the toil delight. Come, then, ye virgins and ye youths, whose hearts Have felt the raptures of refining love; And thou, Amanda, come, pride of my song! Formed by the Graces, loveliness itself! Come with those downcast eyes, sedate and sweet, Those looks demure, that deeply pierce the soul, Where, with the light of thoughtful reason mixed, Shines lively fancy and the feeling heart: O, come! and while the rosy-footed May Steals blushing on, together let us tread
1 Virgil, the Roman poet; he was a native of Mantua, in Lombardy.
The graces (Kharites, Gratia), in classic mythology, were three sisters, daughters of Jupiter, and named Euphrosyne, Aglaia, and Thalia. They personified beauty, taste, and refinement.
The morning dews, and gather in their prime Fresh-blooming flowers, to grace thy braided hair, And thy loved bosom that improves their sweets.
A WALK IN MAY. THE VALLEY. — LILIES. BEANS IN BLOSSOM. THE MEADOW. BEES AT WORK.
See, where the winding vale its lavish stores Irriguous spreads. See, how the lily drinks The latent rill, scarce oozing through the grass Of growth luxuriant; or the humid bank, In fair profusion, decks. Long let us walk, Where the breeze blows from yon extended field Of blossomed beans. Arabia cannot boast A fuller gale of joy, than, liberal, thence Breathes through the sense, and takes the ravished Nor is the mead unworthy of thy foot, Full of fresh verdure and unnumbered flowers, The negligence of Nature, wide, and wild; Where, undisguised by mimic Art, she spreads Unbounded beauty to the roving eye. Here their delicious task the fervent bees, In swarming millions, tend; around, athwart, Through the soft air, the busy nations fly, Cling to the bud, and, with inserted tube, Suck its pure essence, its ethereal soul; And oft, with bolder wing, they soaring dare The purple heath, or where the wild thyme grows, And, yellow, load them with the luscious spoil.
THE GARDEN IN SPRING. THE BOWERY WALK. THE LANDSCAPE.
At length the finished garden to the view Its vistas opens, and its alleys green. Snatched through the verdant maze the hurried eye Distracted wanders; now the bowery walk Of covert close, where scarce a speck of day Falls on the lengthened gloom, protracted sweeps ; Now meets the bending sky; the river now Dimpling along, the breezy-ruffled lake, The forest darkening round, the glittering spire, The ethereal mountain, and the distant main.
SPRING FLOWERS. THE SNOW-DROP; CROCUS; DAISY ; PRIMROSE; VIOLET; POLYANTHUS ; STOCK-FLOWER; ANEMONE; AURICULA; RANUNCULUS; TULIP; HYACINTH; JONQUIL; NARCISSUS ; PINK; ROSE.
But why so far excursive? when at hand, Along these blushing borders, bright with dew, And in yon mingled wilderness of flowers, Fair-handed Spring unbosoms every grace; Throws out the snow-drop and the crocus first; The daisy, primrose, violet darkly blue, And polyanthus of unnumbered dyes; The yellow wall-flower, stained with iron brown ; And lavish stock that scents the garden round. From the soft wing of vernal breezes shed, Anemones auriculas, enriched With shining meal o'er all their velvet leaves; And full ranunculus, of glowing red. Then comes the tulip-race, where Beauty plays Her idle freaks; from family diffused To family, as flies the father-dust,
The varied colors run; and, while they break
On the charmed eye, the exulting florist marks, With secret pride, the wonders of his hand. No gradual bloom is wanting; from the bud, First-born of Spring, to Summer's musky tribes : Nor hyacinths, of purest virgin white, Low bent, and blushing inward; nor jonquils, Of potent fragrance; nor Narcissus1 fair, As o'er the fabled fountain hanging still; Nor broad carnations, nor gay-spotted pinks; Nor, showered from every bush, the damask-rose. Infinite numbers, delicacies, smells,
With hues on hues expression cannot paint, The breath of Nature, and her endless bloom.
ASCRIPTION OF PRAISE TO THE AUTHOR OF NATURE. -THE VEGETABLE WORLD. SAP.
Hail, Source of Being! Universal Soul
Of heaven and earth! Essential Presence, hail! To Thee I bend the knee; to Thee my thoughts Continual climb; who, with a master hand,. Hast the great whole into perfection touched. By Thee the various vegetative tribes, Wrapt in a filmy net, and clad with leaves, Draw the live ether and imbibe the dew; By Thee disposed into congenial soils Stands each attractive plant, and sucks and swells The juicy tide, a twining mass of tubes. At thy command the vernal sun awakes The torpid sap, detruded to the root By wintry winds, that now in fluent dance, And lively fermentation, mounting, spreads All this innumerous-colored scene of things.
THE ANIMAL WORLD; ITS VARIED VOICES OF LOVE. — THE CUCKOO.
As rising from the vegetable world
My theme ascends, with equal wing ascend, My panting Muse! and hark, how loud the woods Invite you forth in all your gayest trim. Lend me your song, ye nightingales! O, pour The mazy-running soul of melody Into my varied verse! while I deduce, From the first note the hollow cuckoo sings, The symphony of Spring, and touch a theme Unknown to fame- the Passion of the Groves.
THE LOVES OF THE BIRDS. THE PASSION OF THE GROVES.
Shrill-voiced and loud, the messenger of morn; Ere yet the shadows fly, he mounted sings Amid the dawning clouds, and from their haunts Calls up the tuneful nations. Every copse Deep-tangled, tree irregular, and bush Bending with dewy moisture o'er the heads Of the coy choristers that lodge within, Are prodigal of harmony. The thrush And wood-lark, o'er the kind-contending throng Superior heard, run through the sweetest length Of notes; when listening Philomela1 deigns To let them joy, and purposes, in thought Elate, to make her night excel their day. The black-bird whistles from the thorny brake; The mellow bulfinch answers from the grove; Nor are the linnets, o'er the flowering furze Poured out profusely, silent. Joined to these, Innumerous songsters, in the freshening shade Of new-sprung leaves, their modulations mix Mellifluous. The jay, the rook, the daw, And each harsh pipe, discordant heard alone, Aid the full concert; while the stock-dove breathes A melancholy murmur through the whole.
"T is love creates their melody, and all This waste of music is the voice of love, That e'en to birds and beasts the tender arts Of pleasing teaches. Hence the glossy kind Try every winning way inventive love
Can dictate, and in courtship to their mates Pour forth their little souls. First, wide around, With distant awe, in airy rings they rove, Endeavoring by a thousand tricks to catch The cunning, conscious, half-averted glance Of the regardless charmer. Should she seem, Softening, the least approvance to bestow, Their colors burnish, and by hope inspired, They brisk advance; then, on a sudden struck, Retire disordered; then again approach; In fond rotation spread the spotted wing, And shiver every feather with desire.
THE BUILDING OF NESTS. THE VARIOUS PLACES CHOSEN FOR NEST-BUILDING.
Connubial leagues agreed, to the deep woods They haste away, all as their fancy leads,
-LOVE-SONGS OF THE LARK; THRUSH; NIGHTINGALE Pleasure, or food, or secret safety prompts —
BLACK-BIRD; BULFINCH; LINNET; JAY; ROOK; DAW; STOCK-DOVE.
When first the soul of love is sent abroad Warm through the vital air, and on the heart Harmonious seizes, the gay troops begin,
In gallant thought, to plume the painted wing, And try again the long-forgotten strain At first faint-warbled; but no sooner grows The soft infusion prevalent and wide, Than, all alive, at once their joy o'erflows In music unconfined. Up springs the lark,
1 A beautiful youth, who, in punishment for his indifference to love, was fabled to have been caused to become enamored of his own image reflected in a spring; and after pining to death for love of it, to have been changed into the pensile flower which bears his name, the narcissus.
That Nature's great command may be obeyed, Nor all the sweet sensations they perceive Indulged in vain. Some to the holly-hedge Nestling repair, and to the thicket some; Some to the rude protection of the thorn Commit their feeble offspring. The cleft tree Ofers its kind concealment to a few, Their food its insects, and its moss their nests. Others apart, far in the grassy dale,
Or roughening waste, their humble texture weave. But most in woodland solitudes delight,
1 The nightingale, so called, because Philomela, the daughter of a King of Attica, being dishonored by her brother-in-law, was fabled to have been changed into this pensive bird.
In unfrequented glooms, or shaggy banks, Steep, and divided by a babbling brook, Whose murmurs soothe them all the live-long day, When by kind duty fixed. Among the roots Of hazel, pendent o'er the plaintive stream, They frame the first foundation of their domes; Dry sprigs of trees, in artful fabric laid, And bound with clay together. Now 't is naught But restless hurry through the busy air, Beat by unnumbered wings. The swallow sweeps The slimy pool, to build his hanging house Intent. And often, from the careless back Of herds and flocks, a thousand tugging bills Pluck hair and wool; and oft, when unobserved, Steal from the barn a straw; till, soft and warm, Clean and complete, their habitation grows.
HATCHING OF EGGS, OR INCUBATION. REARING THE YOUNG BIRDS. THE SELF-DENYING POOR.
As thus the patient dam assiduous sits, Not to be tempted from her tender task Or by sharp hunger, or by smooth delight, Though the whole loosened Spring around her blows; Her sympathizing lover takes his stand High on the opponent bank, and ceaseless sings The tedious time away; or else supplies Her place a moment, while she sudden flits To pick the scanty meal. The appointed time With pious toil fulfilled, the callow young, Warmed and expanded into perfect life, Their brittle bondage break, and come to light, A helpless family, demanding food With constant clamor. O what passions then, What melting sentiments of kindly care, On the new parents seize! Away they fly Affectionate, and undesiring bear The most delicious morsel to their young; Which equally distributed, again
The search begins. Even so a gentle pair, By fortune sunk, but formed of generous mould, And charmed with cares beyond the vulgar breast, In some lone cot, amid the distant woods, Sustained alone by providential Heaven, Oft, as they weeping eye their infant train, Check their own appetites, and give them all.
COURAGE AND ART OF BIRDS TO PROTECT THEIR YOUNG.
Nor toil alone they scorn; exalting love, By the great Father of the Spring inspired, Gives instant courage to the fearful race, And to the simple, art. With stealthy wing, Should some rude foot their woody haunts molest, Amid a neighboring bush they silent drop, And whirring thence, as if alarmed, deceive The unfeeling school-boy. Hence, around the head Of wandering swain, the white-winged plover wheels Her sounding flight, and then directly on In long excursion skims the level lawn,
To tempt him from her nest. The wild duck hence, O'er the rough moss, and o'er the trackless waste The heath-hen, flutters, pious fraud! to lead The hot-pursuing spaniel far astray.
THE CAGING OF BIRDS REPROBATED.
Be not the Muse ashamed here to bemoan Her brothers of the grove, by tyrant Man Inhuman caught, and in the narrow cage From liberty confined, and boundless air. Dull are the pretty slaves, their plumage dull, Ragged, and all its brightening lustre lost; Nor is that sprightly wildness in their notes, Which, clear and vigorous, warbles from the beech. O, then, ye friends of love and love-taught song, Spare the soft tribes, this barbarous art forbear, If on your bosom innocence can win, Music engage, or piety persuade !
THE BIRD'S NEST ROBBED. GRIEF OF THE PARENT BIRDS.
But let not chief the nightingale lament Her ruined care, too delicately framed To brook the harsh confinement of the cage. Oft when, returning with her loaded bill, The astonished mother finds a vacant nest, By the hard hand of unrelenting clowns Robbed, to the ground the vain provision falls; Her pinions ruffle, and, low-drooping, scarce Can bear the mourner to the poplar shade; Where, all abandoned to despair, she sings Her sorrows through the night; and, on the bough, Sole-sitting, still at every dying fall Takes up again her lamentable strain Of winding woe; till, wide around, the woods Sigh to her song, and with her wail resound.
YOUNG BIRDS LEARNING TO FLY.
But now the feathered youth their former bounds, Ardent, disdain; and, weighing oft their wings, Demand the free possession of the sky; This one glad office more, and then dissolves Parental love at once, now needless grown ; Unlavish Wisdom never works in vain.
"T is on some evening, sunny, grateful, mild, [woods, When naught but balm is breathing through the With yellow lustre bright, that the new tribes Visit the spacious heavens, and look abroad On Nature's common, far as they can see,
Or wing, their range and pasture. O'er the boughs Dancing about, still at the giddy verge Their resolution fails; their pinions still, In loose libration stretched, to trust the void Trembling refuse; till down before them fly The parent guides, and chide, exhort, command, Or push them off. The surging air receives Its plumy burden; and their self-taught wings Winnow the waving element. On ground Alighted, bolder up again they lead, Farther and farther on, the lengthening flight; Till vanished every fear, and every power Roused into life and action, light in air The acquitted parents see their soaring race, And once rejoicing never know them more.
THE EAGLE AND HIS YOUNG. KILDA.
High from the summit of a craggy cliff, Hung o'er the deep, such as amazing frowns
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