The foul diforder. Senfelefs, and deform'd, Convulfive anger storms at large; or pale, And filent, fettles into fell revenge. Base envy withers at another's joy,
And hates that excellence it cannot reach. Defponding fear, of feeble fancies full, Weak and unmanly, loofens every power. Ev'n love itself is bitterness of foul, A penfive anguish pining at the heart; Or, funk to fordid intereft, feels no more That noble wish, that never-cloy'd defire, Which, selfish joy disdaining, seeks alone To bless the dearer object of its flame. Hope fickens with extravagance; and grief, Of life impatient, into madness fwells; Or in dead filence waftes the weeping hours. These, and a thoufand mixt emotions more, From ever-changing views of good and ill, Form'd infinitely various, vex the mind
With endless storm: whence, deeply rankling, grows The partial thought, a liftlefs unconcern,
Cold, and averting from our neighbour's good;
Then dark difguft, and hatred, winding wiles, Coward deceit, and ruffian violence :
At laft, extinct each focial feeling, fell
And joyless inhumanity pervades
And petrifies the heart. Nature difturb'd
Is deem'd, vindictive, to have chang'd her course. Hence, in old dusky time, a deluge came: When the deep-cleft difparting orb, that arch'd
The central waters round, impetuous rush'd, With univerfal burft, into the gulph,
And o'er the high-pil'd hills of fractur❜d earth Wide dafh'd the waves, in undulation vast; Till, from the center to the ftreaming clouds, A fhoreless ocean tumbled round the globe.
The Seasons fince have, with feverer fway, Opprefs'd a broken world: the Winter keen Shook forth his waste of fnows; and Summer fhot His peftilential heats. Great Spring, before, Green'd all the year; and fruits and blossoms blush'd, In focial sweetness, on the self-fame bough.
Pure was the temperate air; an even calm
Perpetual reign'd, fave what the zephyrs bland Breath'd o'er the blue expanfe: for then nor ftorms Were taught to blow, nor hurricanes to rage; Sound flept the waters; no fulphureous glooms Swell'd in the sky, and fent the lightning forth; While fickly damps, and cold autumnal fogs, Hung not, relaxing, on the fprings of life. But now, of turbid elements the sport,
From clear to cloudy toft, from hot to cold, And dry to moist, with inward-eating change,
Our drooping days are dwindled down to nought, Their period finish'd ere 'tis well begun,
And yet the wholesome herb neglected dies;
Though with the pure exhilarating foul Of nutriment and health, and vital powers, Beyond the fearch of art, 'tis copious bleft.
For, with hot ravine fir'd, enfanguin'd man
Is now become the lion of the plain,
And worfe. The wolf, who from the nightly fold Fierce drags the bleating prey, ne'er drunk her milk, Nor wore her warming fleece: nor has the steer, At whofe ftrong cheft the deadly tiger hangs, E'er plough'd for him. They too are temper'd high, With hunger ftung and wild neceffity,
Nor lodges pity in their shaggy breast.
But Man, whom Nature form'd of milder clay, With every kind emotion in his heart,
And taught alone to weep; while from her lap She pours ten thousand delicacies, herbs,
And fruits, as numerous as the drops of rain
Or beams that gave them birth: fhall he, fair form! Who wears fweet fmiles, and looks erect on Heaven, E'er ftoop to mingle with the prowling herd, And dip his tongue in gore? The beast of prey, Blood-ftain'd, deferves to bleed: but you, ye flocks, What have ye done; ye peaceful people, what, To merit death? you, who have given us milk In luscious ftreams, and lent us your own coat Against the winter's cold? And the plain ox, That harmless, honest, guileless animal, In what has he offended? he, whose toil, Patient and ever ready, clothes the land With all the pomp of harvest: fhall he bleed, And struggling groan beneath the cruel hands, Ev'n of the clown he feeds? and that, perhaps, To fwell the riot of th' autumnal feast, Won by his labour? Thus the feeling heart
Would tenderly fuggeft: but 'tis enough,
In this late age, adventurous, to have touch'd Light on the numbers of the Samian fage.
High Heaven forbids the bold presumptuous ftrain, Whofe wifeft will has fix'd us in a state
That must not yet to pure perfection rife.
Now when the first foul torrent of the brooks, Swell'd with the vernal rains, is ebb'd away, And, whitening, down their moffy-tinctur'd stream Defcends the billowy foam: now is the time, While yet the dark-brown water aids the guile, To tempt the trout. The well-diffembled fly, The rod fine-tapering with elastic spring, Snatch'd from the hoary fteed the floating line, And all thy flender watry stores prepare. But let not on thy hook the tortur'd worm, Convulfive, twift in agonizing folds ; Which, by rapacious hunger fwallow'd deep, Gives, as you tear it from the bleeding breast Of the weak helplefs uncomplaining wretch, Harth pain, and horror to the tender hand.
When with his lively ray the potent fun Has pierc'd the streams, and rous'd the finny race, Then, iffuing chearful, to thy fport repair; Chief fhould the western breezes curling play, And light o'er æther bear the shadowy clouds. High to their fount, this day, amid the hills, And woodlands warbling round, trace up the brooks; The next, purfue their rocky-channel'd maze, Down to the river, in whose ample wave
Their little Naiads love to sport at large. Just in the dubious point, where with the pool Is mix'd the trembling stream, or where it boils Around the stone, or from the hollow'd bank Reverted plays in undulating flow, There throw, nice-judging, the delufive fly; And as you lead it round in artful curve, With eye attentive mark the springing game, Strait as above the furface of the flood They wanton rise, or urg'd by hunger leap, Then fix, with gentle twitch, the barbed hook: Some lightly toffing to the grassy bank, And to the shelving fhore, flow-dragging fome, With various hand proportion'd to their force. If yet too young, and easily deceiv'd,
A worthless prey fcarce bends your pliant rod, Him, piteous of his youth and the short space He has enjoy'd the vital light of Heaven, Soft difengage, and back into the stream The fpeckled captive throw. But should you lure From his dark haunt, beneath the tangled roots Of pendent trees, the monarch of the brook, Behoves you then to ply your finest art. Long time he, following cautious, scans the fly; And oft attempts to feize it, but as oft The dimpled water speaks his jealous fear. At laft, while haply o'er the fhaded fun Paffes a cloud, he desperate takes the death, With fullen plunge. At once he darts along, Deep-ftruck, and runs out all the lengthen'd line: VOL. I, C
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