Thefe, and a thoufand images of blifs,

With which kind nature graces every scene,
Where cruel man defeats not her defign,
Impart to the benevolent, who with
All that are capable of pleasure pleafed,
A far fuperior happiness to their's,
The comfort of a reasonable joy.

Man scarce had rifen, obedient to his call, Who formed him from the duft, his future grave, When he was crowned as never king was fince. God fet the diadem upon his head,

And angel choirs attended. Wondering stood
The new-made monarch, while before him paffed,
All happy, and all perfect in their kind,

The creatures, fummoned from their various haunts
To fee their fovereign, and confefs his fway.
Vaft was his empire, abfolute his power,
Or bounded only by a law, whose force
'Twas his fublimeft privilege to feel

And own, the law of univerfal love.

He ruled with meekness, they obeyed with joy; No cruel purpose lurked within his heart,

And no diftruft of his intent in their's.

So Eden was a scene of harmless sport,
Where kindness on his part, who ruled the whole,
Begat a tranquil confidence in all,

And fear as yet was not, nor cause for fear.
But fin marred all; and the revolt of man,
That fource of evils not exhaufted yet,
Was punished with revolt of his from him.
Garden of God, how terrible the change

Thy groves and lawns then witneffed! Every heart,
Each animal of every name, conceived

A jealousy and an inftinctive fear,

And, confcious of fome danger, either fled
Precipitate the loathed abode of man,

Or growled defiance in fuch angry fort,
As taught him too to tremble in his turn.
Thus harmony and family accord

Were driven from Paradife; and in that hour
The feeds of cruelty, that fince have fwelled
To fuch gigantic and enormous growth,
Were fown in human nature's fruitful foil.
Hence date the perfecution and the pain,
That man inflicts on all inferior kinds,
Regardless of their plaints. To make him fport,
To gratify the frenzy of his wrath,

Or his bafe gluttony, are caufes good

And just in his account, why bird and beast
Should fuffer torture, and the ftreams be dyed
With blood of their inhabitants impaled.
Earth groans beneath the burden of a war
Waged with defenceless innocence, while he,-
Not fatisfied to prey on all around,

Adds tenfold bitterness to death by pangs
Needlefs, and first torments ere he devours.
Now happieft they, that occupy the scenes
The most remote from his abhorred resort,
Whom once, as delegate of God on earth,
They feared, and as his perfect image loved.
The wilderness is their's, with all its caves,

Its hollow glens, its

Unvifited by man.

thickets, and its plains,

There they are free,

And howl and roar as likes them, uncontrolled;
Nor afk his leave to flumber 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 generous fcorn
To rend a victim trembling at his foot.

In measure, as by force of inftin&t drawn,
Or by neceffity constrained, 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 fells protection.-Witness at his foot
The spaniel dying for fome venial fault
Under diffection of the knotted scourge;
Witness the patient ox, with ftripes and yells
Driven to the flaughter, goaded, as he runs,
To madness; while the favage at his heels
Laughs at the frantic fufferer's fury, fpent.
Upon the guiltless paffenger o'erthrown.
He too is witness, nobleft of the train
That wait on man, the flight-performing horse:
With unfufpecting readiness he takes

His murderer on his back, and pushed all day
With bleeding fides and flanks, that heave for life,
To the far diftant goal, arrives and dies.

So little mercy fhows who needs fo much!
Does law, fo jealous in the cause of man,
Denounce no doom on the delinquent? None.
He lives, and o'er his brimming beaker boafts
(As if barbarity were high defert)

The inglorious feat, and clamorous in praise
Of the poor brute, feems wifely to suppose
The honours of his matchlefs horfe his own.
But many a crime, deemed innocent on earth,
Is registered in heaven; and thefe no doubt
Have each their record, with a curfe annexed.
Man may difmifs compaffion from his heart,
But God will never. When he charged the Jew
To affift his foe's down-fallen beast to rife;
And when the bufh-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 conferred, 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 inftrument, and mark it well:
The oppreffion of a tyrannous control

Can find no warrant there. Feed then, and yield
Thanks for thy food. Carnivorous, through fin,
Feed on the flain, but fpare the living brute!