Nor would they call with lamentations loud Around the fields for daylight and the sun, Quaking and wand'ring in shadows of the night;But, silent and buried in a sleep, they'd wait Until the sun with rosy flambeau brought The glory to the sky. From childhood wont Ever to see the dark and day begot In times alternate, never might they be Wildered by wild misgiving, lest a night Eternal should possess the lands, with light Of sun withdrawn forever. But their care Was rather that the clans of savage beasts Would often make their sleep-time horrible For those poor wretches; and, from home y-driven, They'd flee their rocky shelters at approach Of boar, the spumy-lipped, or lion strong, And in the midnight yield with terror up To those fierce guests their beds of out-spread leaves.
And yet in those days not much more than now Would generations of mortality Leave the sweet light of fading life behind.
Indeed, in those days here and there a man, More oftener snatched upon, and gulped by fangs, Afforded the beasts a food that roared alive, Echoing through groves and hills and forest-trees, Even as he viewed his living flesh entombed Within a living grave; whilst those whom flight Had saved, with bone and body bitten, shrieked, Pressing their quivering palms to loathsome sores, With horrible voices for eternal death-Until, forlorn of help, and witless what Might medicine their wounds, the writhing pangs Took them from life. But not in those far times Would one lone day give over unto doom A soldiery in thousands marching on Beneath the battle-banners, nor would then The ramping breakers of the main seas dash Whole argosies and crews upon the rocks.
But ocean uprisen would often rave in vain, Without all end or outcome, and give up Its empty menacings as lightly too;Nor soft seductions of a serene sea Could lure by laughing billows any man Out to disaster: for the science bold Of ship-sailing lay dark in those far times.
Again, 'twas then that lack of food gave o'er Men's fainting limbs to dissolution: now 'Tis plenty overwhelms. Unwary, they Oft for themselves themselves would then outpour The poison; now, with nicer art, themselves They give the drafts to others.
BEGINNINGS OF CIVILIZATION
Afterwards, When huts they had procured and pelts and fire, And when the woman, joined unto the man, Withdrew with him into one dwelling place, . . . . . .
Were known; and when they saw an offspring born From out themselves, then first the human race Began to soften. For 'twas now that fire Rendered their shivering frames less staunch to bear, Under the canopy of the sky, the cold;And Love reduced their shaggy hardiness;
And children, with the prattle and the kiss, Soon broke the parents' haughty temper down.
Then, too, did neighbours 'gin to league as friends, Eager to wrong no more or suffer wrong, And urged for children and the womankind Mercy, of fathers, whilst with cries and gestures They stammered hints how meet it was that all Should have compassion on the weak. And still, Though concord not in every wise could then Begotten be, a good, a goodly part Kept faith inviolate- or else mankind Long since had been unutterably cut off, And propagation never could have brought The species down the ages.
Lest, perchance, Concerning these affairs thou ponderest In silent meditation, let me say 'Twas lightning brought primevally to earth The fire for mortals, and from thence hath spread O'er all the lands the flames of heat. For thus Even now we see so many objects, touched By the celestial flames, to flash aglow, When thunderbolt has dowered them with heat.
Yet also when a many-branched tree, Beaten by winds, writhes swaying to and fro, Pressing 'gainst branches of a neighbour tree, There by the power of mighty rub and rub Is fire engendered; and at times out-flares The scorching heat of flame, when boughs do chafe Against the trunks. And of these causes, either May well have given to mortal men the fire.
Next, food to cook and soften in the flame The sun instructed, since so oft they saw How objects mellowed, when subdued by warmth And by the raining blows of fiery beams, Through all the fields.
And more and more each day Would men more strong in sense, more wise in heart, Teach them to change their earlier mode and life By fire and new devices. Kings began Cities to found and citadels to set, As strongholds and asylums for themselves, And flocks and fields to portion for each man After the beauty, strength, and sense of each-For beauty then imported much, and strength Had its own rights supreme. Thereafter, wealth Discovered was, and gold was brought to light, Which soon of honour stripped both strong and fair;For men, however beautiful in form Or valorous, will follow in the main The rich man's party. Yet were man to steer His life by sounder reasoning, he'd own Abounding riches, if with mind content He lived by thrift; for never, as I guess, Is there a lack of little in the world.
But men wished glory for themselves and power Even that their fortunes on foundations firm Might rest forever, and that they themselves, The opulent, might pass a quiet life-In vain, in vain; since, in the strife to climb On to the heights of honour, men do make Their pathway terrible; and even when once They reach them, envy like the thunderbolt At times will smite, O hurling headlong down To murkiest Tartarus, in scorn; for, lo, All summits, all regions loftier than the rest, Smoke, blasted as by envy's thunderbolts;So better far in quiet to obey, Than to desire chief mastery of affairs And ownership of empires. Be it so;And let the weary sweat their life-blood out All to no end, battling in hate along The narrow path of man's ambition;Since all their wisdom is from others' lips, And all they seek is known from what they've heard And less from what they've thought. Nor is this folly Greater to-day, nor greater soon to be, Than' twas of old.