Page:The Seasons - Thomson (1791).djvu/129

A rapid lightning darts, arresting swift 905
The vital current. Form'd to humble Man,
This child of vengeful Nature! there, sublim'd
To fearless lust of blood, the savage race
Roam, licens'd by the shading hour of guilt,
And foul misdeed, when the pure day has shut 910
His sacred eye. The tyger darting fierce,
Impetuous on the prey his glance has doom'd:
The lively-shining leopard, speckled o'er
With many a spot, the beauty of the waste;
And, scorning all the taming arts of Man, 915
The keen hyena, fellest of the fell.
These, rushing from th' inhospitable woods
Of Mauritania, or the tufted isles,
That verdant rise amid the Lybian wild,
Innumerous glare around their shaggy king, 920
Majestic, stalking o'er the printed sand;
And, with imperious and repeated roars,
Demand their fated food. The fearful flocks
Croud near the guardian swain; the nobler herds,
Where round their lordly bull, in rural ease,925
They ruminating lie, with horror hear
The coming rage. Th' awaken'd village starts;
And to her fluttering breast the mother strains
Her thoughtless infant. From the Pyrate's den,
Or stern Morocco's tyrant fang escap'd,930
The wretch half-wishes for his bonds again:
While, uproar all, the wilderness resounds,
From Atlas eastward to the frighted Nile.

Unhappy he! who from the first of joys,
Society, cut off, is left alone 935
Amid this world of death. Day after day,
Sad on the jutting eminence he fits,
And views the main that ever toils below;

Still