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 And fear as yet was not, nor cause for fear. That source of evils not exhausted yet, Was punish'd with revolt of his from him. Thy groves and lawns then witness'd! Ev'ry heart, 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. Were driv'n from Paradise; and in that hour 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 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 To rend a victim trembling at his foot. Laughs at the frantic suff'rer's fury, spent He, too, is witness, noblest of the train 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. Th' inglorious feat, and, clamorous in praise 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 O'er all we feed on pow'r of life and death. Can find no warrant there. Feed then, and yield The Governor of all, himself to all So bountiful, in whose attentive ear |