And no distrust of his intent in their's.

So Eden was a scene of harmless sport,

Where kindness on his part who rul'd the whole
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! Ev'ry heart,
Each animal of ev'ry name, conceiv'd

A jealousy and an instinctive fear,

And, conscious of some danger, either fled

Precipitate the loath'd 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 driv'n 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 impal'd.
Earth groans beneath the burden of a war
Wag'd 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, lov'd. The wilderness is their's, with all its caves, Its hollow glens, its thickets, and its plains,

Unvisited by man.

There they are free,

And howl and roar as likes them, uncontrol'd;

Nor ask his leave to slumber or to play.

Wo 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 spare him, spares him on the terms
Of royal mercy, and through gen'rous 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
Driv'n to the slaughter, goaded, as he runs,
To madness; while the savage at his heels

Laughs at the frantic suff'rer'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 murd'rer 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)

Th' 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 heav'n; 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 charg'd the Jew

T'assist his foe's down-fallen beast to rise;

And when the bush-exploring boy, that seiz'd

The young, to let the

parent bird go free;

Prov'd he not plainly that his meaner works

Are yet his care, and have an int'rest 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 pow'r of life and death.
But read the instrument, and mark it well:
Th' 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