Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 36.djvu/107

Rh See how that fleet, with canvas wings, From Texel, Bordeaux, London brings, By happy commerce to our shores, All Indus, and all Ganges stores; Whilst France, that pierced the Turkish lines, Sultans make drunk with rich French wines. Just at the time of Nature's birth, Dark ignorance o'erspread the earth; None then in wealth surpassed the rest, For naught the human race possessed. Of clothes, their bodies then were bare, They nothing had, and could not share: Then too they sober were and sage, Martialo lived not in that age. Eve, first formed by the hand divine, Never so much as tasted wine. Do you our ancestors admire, Because they wore no rich attire? Ease was like wealth to them unknown, Was't virtue ? ignorance alone. Would any fool, had he a bed, On the bare ground have laid his head? My fruit-eating first father, say, In Eden how rolled time away? Did you work for the human race, And clasp dame Eve with close embrace! Own that your nails you could not pare, And that you wore disordered hair, That you were swarthy in complexion, And that your amorous affection Had very little better in't Than downright animal instinct.