To ecstasy too big to be suppressed;- These, and a thousand images of bliss, With which kind nature graces every scene Where cruel man defeats not her design, Impart to the benevolent, who wish All that are capable of pleasure pleased, A far superior happiness to theirs, The comfort of a reasonable joy.
Man scarce had risen, obedient to His call Who form'd him, from the dust his future grave, When he was crown'd as never king was since. God set the diadem upon his head, And angel choirs attended. Wondering stood The new-made monarch, while before him pass'd, All happy and all perfect in their kind,
The creatures, summon'd from their various haunts
To see their sovereign, and confess his sway. Vast was his empire, absolute his power, Or bounded only by a law whose force 'Twas his sublimest privilege to feel And own, the law of universal love.
He ruled with meekness, they obeyed with joy.
No cruel purpose lurk'd within his heart,
And no distrust of his intent in theirs.
So Eden was a scene of harmless sport,
Where kindness on his part who ruled the whole 365 Begat a tranquil confidence in all,
And fear as yet was not, nor cause for fear. But sin marr'd all; and the revolt of man, That source of evils not exhausted yet, Was punish'd with revolt of his from him. Garden of God, how terrible the change
Thy groves and lawns then witness'd! every heart, Each animal of every name, conceived
A jealousy and an instinctive fear, And conscious of some danger, either fled Precipitate the loathed abode of man, Or growl'd defiance in such angry sort, As taught him too to tremble in his turn.
Thus harmony and family accord
Were driven from Paradise; and in that hour The seeds of cruelty that since have swell'd
To such gigantic and enormous growth,
Were sown in human nature's fruitful soil.
Hence date the persecution and the pain
That man inflicts on all inferior kinds,
Regardless of their plaints. To make him sport,
To gratify the frenzy of his wrath,
Or his base gluttony, are causes good
And just in his account, why bird and beast
Should suffer torture, and the streams be dyed With blood of their inhabitants impaled. Earth groans beneath the burthen of a war Waged with defenceless innocence, while he, Not satisfied to prey on all around,
Adds tenfold bitterness to death, by pangs Needless, and first torments ere he devours. Now happiest they that occupy the scenes The most remote from his abhorr'd resort, Whom once as delegate of God on earth They fear'd, and as his perfect image loved. The wilderness is theirs with all its caves, Its hollow glens, its
thickets, and its plains There they are free,
And howl and roar as likes them, uncontrol'd, Nor ask his leave to slumber or to play. Woe to the tyrant if he dare intrude
Within the confines of their wild domain; The Lion tells him-I am monarch here,-
And if he spares him, spares him on the terms Of royal mercy, and through generous scorn To rend a victim trembling at his foot. In measure as by force of instinct drawn, Or by necessity constrain'd, they live Dependent upon man, those in his fields,
These at his crib, and some beneath his roof; They prove too often at how dear a rate He sells protection. Witness, at his foot The spaniel dying for some venial fault, Under dissection of the knotted scourge. Witness the patient ox, with stripes and yells Driven to the slaughter, goaded as he runs To madness, while the savage at his heels Laughs at the frantic sufferer's fury spent Upon the guiltless passenger o'erthrown. He too is witness, noblest of the train That wait on man, the flight-performing horse: With unsuspecting readiness he takes
His murtherer on his back, and push'd all day
With bleeding sides and flanks that heave for life To the far-distant goal, arrives and dies.
So little mercy shows who needs so much! Does law, so jealous in the cause of man, Denounce no doom on the delinquent? None. He lives, and o'er his brimming beaker boasts (As if barbarity were high desert,)
The inglorious feat, and clamorous in praise Of the poor brute, seems wisely to suppose The honours of his matchless horse his own. But many a crime deem'd innocent on earth Is register'd in heaven, and these, no doubt, Have each their record, with a curse annex'd. Man may dismiss compassion from his heart, But God will never. When he charged the Jew To assist his foe's down-fallen beast to rise, And when the bush-exploring boy that seized The young, to let the parent bird go free, Proved he not plainly that his meaner works Are yet his care, and have an interest all, All, in the universal Father's love? On Noah, and in him on all mankind The charter was conferr'd by which we hold The flesh of animals in fee, and claim O'er all we feed on, power of life and death. But read the instrument, and mark it well. The oppression of a tyrannous controul
Can find no warrant there. Feed then, and yield Thanks for thy food. Carnivorous through sin Feed on the slain, but spare the living brute. The Governor of all, himself to all
So bountiful, in whose attentive ear The unfledged raven and the lion's whelp Plead not in vain for pity on the pangs Of hunger unassuaged, has interposed, Not seldom, his avenging arm, to smite The injurious trampler upon nature's law That claims forbearance even for a brute. He hates the hardness of a Balaam's heart; And.prophet as he was, he might not strike
The blameless animal, without rebuke, On which he rode: her opportune offence Saved him, or the unrelenting seer had died. He sees that human equity is slack
To interfere, though in so just a cause
And makes the task his own; inspiring dumb And helpless victims with a sense so keen
Of injury, with such knowledge of their strength, And such sagacity to take revenge,
That oft the beast has seem'd to judge the man. An ancient, not a legendary tale,
By one of sound intelligence rehearsed,
(If such, who plead for Providence, may seem In modern eyes,) shall make the doctrine clear. Where England stretch'd towards the setting sun Narrow and long, o'erlooks the western wave, Dwelt young Misagathus; a scorner he Of God and goodness, atheist in ostent, Vicious in act, in temper savage-fierce.
He journey'd, and his chance was as he went, To join a traveller of far different note, Evander, famed for piety, for years Deserving honour, but for wisdom more. Fame had not left the venerable man A stranger to the manners of the youth, Whose face too was familiar to his view. Their way was on the margin of the land, O'er the green summit of the rocks whose base Beats back the roaring surge 16, scarce heard so high. The charity that warm'd his heart was moved
That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes,
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