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 heaven;255
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 clouds260
Drop'd fatness down; as o'er the swelling mead,
The herds and flocks, commixing, play'd secure.
This when, emergent from the gloomy wood,
The glaring lion saw, his horrid heart
Was meeken'd, and he join'd his sullen joy.265
For music held the whole in perfect peace:
Soft sigh'd the flute; the tender voice was heard,
Warbling the joyous heart; the woodlands round
Apply'd their quire; and winds and waters flow'd
In consonance. Such were those prime of days.270
But now those white unblemish’d manners, whence
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 powers,275
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’d280
Convulsive anger storms at large; or pale,
And silent, fettles into fell revenge.
Base envy withers at another’s joy,
And hates that excellence it cannot reach.
Despon-
