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IV. Which desolates the discord-wasted land. From kings, and priests, and statesmen, war arose, Whose safety is man's deep unbettered woe, Whose grandeur his debasement. Let the axe Strike at the root, the poison-tree will fall; And where its venomed exhalations spread Ruin, and death, and woe, where millions lay Quenching the serpent's famine, and their bones Bleaching unburied in the putrid blast, A garden shall arise, in loveliness Surpassing fabled Eden.

Hath Nature's soul, That formed this world so beautiful, that spread Earth's lap with plenty, and life's smallest chord Strung to unchanging unison, that gave The happy birds their dwelling in the grove, That yielded to the wanderers of the deep The lovely silence of the unfathomed main, And filled the meanest worm that crawls in dust With spirit, thought, and love; on Man alone, Partial in causeless malice, wantonly Heaped ruin, vice, and slavery; his soul Blasted with withering curses; placed afar The meteor-happiness, that shuns his grasp, But serving on the frightful gulph to glare, Rent wide beneath his footsteps?

Nature!—no! Kings, priests, and statesmen, blast the human flower Even in its tender bud; their influence darts