A vision of that unforgotten prime,
The patriarchal age, when Earth was young,
A while oh: let it linger!--oh the soul
It breaketh, like a lovely burst of spring
Upon the gaze of captives, when the clouds
Again are floating over freedom's head!--
Though Sin had witherd with a charnel breath
Creation's morning bloom, there still remain'd
Elysian hues of that Adamic scene,
When the Sun gloried o'er a sinless world,
And with each ray produced a flower!--From dells
Untrodden, hark! the breezy carol comes
Upwafted, with the chant of radiant birds.--
What meadows, bathed in greenest light, and woods
Gigantic, towering from the skiey hills,
And od'rous trees in prodigal array,
With all the elements divinely calm--
Our fancy pictures on the infant globe!
And ah! how godlike, with imperial brow
Benignly grave, yon patriarchal forms
Tread the free earth, and eye the naked heavens!
In Nature's stamp of unassisted grace
Each limb is moulded; simple as the mind
The vest they wear; and not a hand but works,
Or tills the ground with honourable toil:
By youth revered, their sons around them grow
And flourish; monarch of his past'ral tribe,
A patriarch's throne is each devoted heart!
And when he slumbers on the tented plain
Beneath the vigil stars, a living wall
Is round him, in the might of love's defence:
For he is worthy--sacrifice and song
By him are ruled; and oft at shut of flowers,
When queenly virgins in the sunset go
To carry water from the crystal wells,
In beautiful content,--beneath a tree
Whose shadows hung o'er many a hallow'd sire,
He sits; recording how creation rose
From nothing, of the Word almighty born;
How Man had fallen, and where Eden boughs
Had waved their beauty on the breeze of morn;
Or, how the angels still at twilight love
To visit earth with errands from the sky.