Now come, ye Naiads, to the fountains lead; Now let me wander thro’ your gelid reign. I burn to view th’ enthusiastic wilds By mortal else untrod. I hear the din 355 Of waters thundering o’er the ruin’d cliffs. With holy rev’rence I approach the rocks Whence glide the streams renown’d in ancient song. Here from the desart down the rumbling steep First springs the Nile; here bursts the sounding Po 360 In angry waves; Euphrates hence devolves A mighty flood to water half the East; And there, in Gothic solitude reclin’d, The chearless Tanais pours his hoary urn. What solemn twilight! What stupendous shades 365 Enwarp these infant floods! Thro’ every nerve A sacred horror thrills, a pleasing fear Glides o’er my frame. The forest deepens round; And more gigantic still th’ impending trees Stretch their extravagant arms athwart the gloom. 370 Are these the confines of some fairy world? A land of Genii? Say, beyond these wilds What unknown nations? If indeed beyond Aught habitable lies. And whither leads, To what strange regions, or of bliss or pain, 375 That subterraneous way? Propitious maids, Conduct me, while with fearful steps I tread This trembling ground. The task remains to sing Your gifts, (so Pæon, so the powers of health Command) to praise your chrystal element: 380 The chief ingredient in heaven’s various works; Whose flexile genius sparkles in the gem, Grows firm in oak, and fugitive in wine; The vehicle, the source, of nutriment And life, to all that vegitate or live. 385 O comfortable streams? With eager lips And trembling hand the languid thirsty quaff New life in you; fresh vigor fills their veins. No warmer cups the rural ages knew; None warmer sought the sires of human-kind. 390 Happy in temperate peace! Their equal days Felt not th’ alternate fits of feverish mirth, And sick dejection. Still serene and pleas’d, They knew no pains but what the tender soul With pleasure yields to, and would ne’er forget. 395 Blest with divine immunity from ails, Long centuries they liv’d; their only fate Was ripe old age, and rather sleep than death. Oh! could those worthies from the world of Gods Return to visit their degenerate sons, 400 How would they scorn the joys of modern time, With all our art and toil improv’d to pain! Too happy they! But wealth brought luxury, And luxury on sloth begot disease.