Page:The Seasons - Thomson (1791).djvu/71

 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; 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 clouds 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. 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.

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, 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’d 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-