The earth exhibited a dreary waste.
No lofty cities, then, with glittering spires
And massy walls of mountain rocks composed,
Reared their tall turrets, and with Atlas vied,
Who should sustain the starry vault of heaven.
No rural hamlet, then, with peaceful shades,
And groves in verdure of perennial bloom,
Oft kissed with rapture by the sportive gale,
Courted the wretched traveller's weary feet
To the sweet blessings of a frugal board.
'Twas his to wander mid tenebrious wilds,
Where deeply grave, majestick Horror reigns;
Where savage beasts so fiercely yell and roar,
That Sol, affrighted at the dismal sound,
Ne'er dared to dart within the dreary scene
A single ray to dissipate the shade.
Such were the horrors of his vagrant path,
And such the woes, which disobedience brought;
Through all his race the dire contagion ran;
Disease and want and treachery filled the earth.
What rending grief must wound our parent's breast,
When erst from Paradise his feet were driven;
What heart-felt torture must his bosom sting,
Then to reflect, that, for his fault alone,
Ages of ages of his sons unborn
Should suffer all the pangs of guilt and woe,
Hear the dire curse, which his own follies wrought,
And feel the lash of wrath, which he provoked.
Perhaps, elate on Fancy's daring wing, (For she with wretched mourners is a guest)
He oft beheld on life's tempestuous tide,
His offspring struggling with the adverse surge,
Wrecked on adversity's Charybdian coast;
Now borne aloft upon the swelling surge,
Now plunging headlong down the dark abyss,
Where boiling quicksands rave with madding foam,
And pour through parting waves their oozy surf;
Where sea-green caves, like sepulchres appear,
To catch the spirit, fainting with fatigue.
While raging seas in mad rebellion rise,
And rocks and winds and bellowing oceans war;
While daring surges lift their heads to heaven,
Loud thunders, bursting with tremendous roar,
Roll through the quaking sky their muttering wrath;
The hapless strugglers on the briny deep,
Each effort vain, and whelmed in dark despair,
Their eyes erect to heaven with languid look,
Upbraid the parent, author of their woes,
And, cursing Adam, sink to rise no more.
Such were perhaps the scenes, our common sire
With self-accusing fancy sadly drew;
And with the bitterest grief, that mortals feel,
Bemoaned the deed irrevocably cursed.
Cease, tender parent, thy invective plaint; No more thy breast with lamentations wound; Oh, wipe the dark suspicion from thy soul, That e'er thy race could with ungenerous voice Pronounce a curse upon thy reverend head! Sooner shall Winter in his frigid arms
Embrace the blooming Spring, the type of heaven; Sooner the turtle, when the parent dove
Has built her nest in insalubrious spot,
Oft ravaged by the fierce rapacious foe,
Forget the author of its tender life,
And cease to coo the harmless notes of love.
Long as the blue-waved seas, in lucid lapse,
Shall roll majestick through the caverned earth;
Long as the year shall blossom with the spring,
With summer ripen, and with autumn yield;
Long as the sun, the powerful king of day,
Shall ride triumphant in his car of light;
Till Nature's self shall droop with hoary age,
And sleep, low mouldering, in her silent tomb,
Formed of the mighty wrecks of falling worlds;
Till then thy name shall pervagrate the earth,
Herald of Love, and monitor of Heaven.
These lines are without date, but as they appear in the hand Mr. Paine wrote, at that time, they were, probably, produced in his junior year; perhaps, however, as the manuscript is a fair and second copy, they are of earlier origin.
SPRIGHTLY and gay as love, as pure as truth,
The soul of beauty, and the pride of youth,
Demands my song; while my infantine muse
On waving wing, the heaven-born theme pursues.
No tuneful choir, who haunt Pieria's shade,
Do I invoke to lend their sacred aid;
My muse would beg alone Maria's smile,
To inspire her numbers and reward her toil,
And proud I'll feel, if Mary's hand bestow
Her favourite myrtle on my honoured brow.
When first mankind obeyed tyrannick sway,
The softer virtues in oblivion lay;
Then pale Affliction with her iron rod,
And Carnage dire around the nations strode.
Man sunk to vile debasement's lowest grade,
And lived" with beasts joint tenants of the shade.”
That fond endearing love which Nature formed,
Which once each breast to social friendship warmed,
Which once to generous deeds the world inspired,
To deeds which listening ages have admired,
No more prevailed, but lust, revenge and ire,
With brutal fury set the world on fire.
Tyrants and kings their lawless empire spread,
And from the sanguine earth the Virtues fled.
Though whelmed in woe and misery severe,
Such as e'en Nero must have wept to hear;
Though torn from all the objects of their love,
By dread seclusion, by a long remove;
Yet such was man's degenerate groveling state,
He added torture to the wounds of fate.
The generous fervour of the social flame
Was now unknown, or only known in name.
Pale-eyed Despair now raised her ebon throne,
And Pity knew no sorrows but her own.
Without a friend to calm his throbbing heart,
And from his breast to wrench Misfortune's dart, Each in himself beheld his last resort,
Too weak, too frail his sorrow to support;
No generous tear bemoaned another's grief,
No friendly sympathy bestowed relief;
Tyrants beheld their easy victims fall,
And one wide common grave threat death to all.
But, to relieve the miseries of man,
Sweet Sensibility her reign began;
Beneath the mildness of her gentle reign,
The smiling virtues blessed the earth again;
Candour and Friendship, sweet ethereal pair,
Dispelled the lurid clouds of dark despair;
Those realms, which in the shades of darkness lay,
Shut from the light of learning's splendid day,
Or in the vale of misery, distressed
With every woe, that grieves a mortal breast,
With heart-felt joy perceived Compassion near,
From Sorrow's eye to wipe her bursting tear,
And mid the dungeon's insalubrious gloom,
Beheld the rose of consolation bloom.
Sweet Sensibility, pure is thy sway,
As the clear splendours of Hesperian day;
Bright is thy form, as when the clouds of even,
Enchase with flaming gold the azure heaven;
Soft is thy bosom, as the silver waves,
When gentle zephyrs, from their western caves,
Breathe a mild perfume o'er the rippling stream,
Which smiles effulgent in the solar beam.
Prompt is this breast, the wretched to release,
To allay his suffering with the voice of peace;
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