The SILVER AGE.
But when good Saturn banish'd from above,
Was driv'n to hell, the world was under Jove.
Succeeding times a filver age behold,
Excelling brass, but more excell'd by gold.
Then Summer, Autumn, Winter did appear;
And Spring was but a season of the year.
The fun his annual course obliquely made,
Good days contracted, and enlarg'd the bad.
Then air with sultry heats began to glow,
The wings of winds were clog'd with ice and snow;
And shivering mortals, into houses driv'n,
Sought shelter from th' inclemency of heav'n.
Those houses, then, were caves, or homely sheds,
With twining oziers fenc'd, and moss their beds.
Then ploughs, for feed, the fruitful furrows broke,
And oxen labour'd first beneath the yoke.
The BRAZEN AGE.
To this next came in course the brazen age: A warlike offspring prompt to bloody rage, Not impious yet-
The IRON AGE.
-Hard steel succeeded then;
And stubborn as the metal were the men.
Truth, Modesty, and Shame, the world forsook:
Fraud, Avarice, and Force, their places took.
Then fails were spread to ev'ry wind that blew;
Raw were the failors, and the depths were new:
Trees rudely hollow'd, did the waves sustain;
Ere ships in triumph plough'd the watry plain.
Then land-marks limited to each his right:
For all before was common as the light.
Nor was the ground alone requir'd to bear
Her annual income to the crooked share;
But greedy mortals rummaging her store,
Digg'd from her entrails first the precious ore;
Which next to hell the prudert Gods had laid;
And that alluring ill to fight display'd;
Thus cursed steel, and more accurfed gold
Gave mischief birth, and made that mischief bold:
And double death did wretched man invade,
By steel afsaulted, and by gold betray'd.
Now (brandish'd weapons glitt'ring in their hands)
Mankind is broken loose from moral bands;
No rights of hospitality remain:
The guest, by him who harbour'd him, is slain:
The fon-in-law pursues the father's life;
The wife her husband murders, he the wife.
The step-dame poison for the son prepares;
The fon inquires into his father's years.
Faith flies, and Piety in exile mourns;
And Justice here opprest, to heav'n returns.
Nor were the Gods themselves more safe above,
Against beleaguer'd heav'n the giants move.
Hills pil'd on hills, on mountains mountains lie,
To make their mad approaches to the sky.
Till Jove, no longer patient, took his time
T' avenge with thunder their audacious crime:
Red light'ning play'd along the firmament,
And their demolish'd works to pieces rent.
Sing'd with the flames, and with the bolts transfix'd, With native earth their blood the monsters mix'd;
The blood, indu'd with animating heat,
Did in th' impregnate earth new fons beget:
They, like the feed from which they sprung, accurft
Against the Gods immortal hatred nurst:
An impious, arrogant, and cruel brood;
Expressing their original from blood.
Which when the king of Gods beheld from high
(Withal revolving in his memory,
What he himself had found on earth of late,
Lycaon's guilt, and his inhuman treat)
He figh'd, nor longer with his pity strove;
But kindled to a wrath becoming Jove;
Then call'd a general council of the Gods;
Who, summon'd, issue from their blest abodes,
And fill th' assembly with a shining train.
A way there is in heav'n's expanded plain,
Which, when the skies are clear, is seen below,
And mortals by the name of milky know.
The ground-work is of stars; through which the road
Lies open to the thunderer's abode.
The Gods of greater nations dwell around,
And, on the right and left the palace bound;
The commons where they can; the nobler fort,
With winding doors wide open, front the court.
This place, as far as earth with heav'n may vie,
I dare to call the Louvre of the sky.
When all were plac'd, in feats distinctly known,
And he their father had assum'd the throne,
Upon his iv'ry scepter first he leant,
Then shook his head that shook the firmament:
Air, earth, and seas, obey'd th' almighty nod;
And, with a general fear, confefs'd the God.
At length with indignation, thus he broke
His awful filence, and the pow'rs bespoke.
I was not more concern'd in that debate
Of empire, when our universal state
Was put to hazard, and the giant race
Our captive skies were ready to embrace:
For tho' the foe was fierce, the feeds of all
Rebellion sprung from one original;
Now wheresoever ambient waters glide,
All are corrupt and all must be destroy'd.
Let me this holy protestation make:
By hell and hell's inviolable lake,
I try'd whatever in the God-head lay,
But gangren'd members must be lopt away,
Before the nobler parts are tainted to decay.
There dwells below a race of Demi-gods,
Of nymphs in waters, and of fawns in woodst
Who, tho' not worthy yet in heav'n to live,
Let 'em at least enjoy that earth we give.
Can these be thought securely lodg'd below,
When I myself, who no fuperior know,
I, who have heav'n and earth at my command,
Have been attempted by Lycaon's hand?
At this a murmur thro' the synod went,
And with one voice they vote his punishment.
Thus, when confpiring traitors, dar'd to doom
'The fall of Cæfar, and in him of Rome,
'The nations trembled with a pious fear;
All anxious for their earthly thunderer:
Nor was their care, O Cæfar, less esteem'd
By thee, than that of heaven for Jove was deem'd:
Who with his hand, and voice, did first restrain
Their murmurs, then resum'd his speech again,
The Gods to filence were compos'd, and fat
With rev'rence due to his fuperior state.
Cancel your pious cares; already he
Has paid his debt to justice, and to me.
Yet what his crimes, and what my judgments were,
Remains for me thus briefly to declare.
The clamours of this vile degenerate age,
The cries of orphans, and th' oppreffor's rage,
Had reach'd the stars; I will descend, said I,
In hope to prove this loud complaint a lie.
Disguiss'd in human shape, I travell'd round
The world, and more than what I heard, I found.
O'er Mænalus I took my steepy way,
By caverns infamous for beasts of prey:
Then crofs'd Cyllene, and the piny shade,
More infamous by curst Lycaon made:
Dark night had cover'd heav'n and earth, before
I enter'd his unhospitable door.
Just at my entrance, I display'd the fign
That fomewhat was approaching of divine.
The proftrate people pray, the tyrant grins;
And, adding prophanation to his fins,
I'll try, faid he, and if a God appear,
To prove his deity shall cost him dear.
"Twas late; the graceless wretch my death prepares,
When I should foundly fleep, opprest with cares:
This dire experiment he chose, to prove
If I were mortal, or undoubted Jove:
But first he had resolv'd to taste my pow'r:
Not long before, but in a luckless hour,
Some legates sent from the Molossian state,
Were on a peaceful errand come to treat:
Of these he murders one, he boils the flesh,
And lays the mangled morsels in a dish :
Some part he roasts; then serves it up so dreft,
And bids me welcome to this human feast.
Mov'd with disdain, the table I o'erturn'd;
And with avenging flames the palace burn'd.
The tyrant in a fright, for shelter gains
The neighb'ring fields, and scours along the plains.
Howling he fled, and fain he wou'd have spoke,
But human voice his brutal tongue forsook.
About his lips the gather'd foam he churns,
And breathing flaughter, still with rage he burns,
But on the bleating flock his fury turns.
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