Then rose the proud phenomenon, the birth Most richly wrought, the favorite child of earth; But frail at first his frame, with nerves ill strung, Unform'd his footsteps, long untoned his tongue, Unhappy, unassociate, unrefined, Unfledged the pinions of his lofty mind, He wander'd wild, to every beast a prey, More prest with wrants, and feebler far than they; For countless ages forced from place to place, Just reproduced but scarce preserved his race. At last, a soil more fixt and streams more sweet Inform the wretched migrant where to seat; Euphrates' flowery banks begin to smile, Fruits fringe the Ganges, gardens grace the Nile; Nile, ribb'd with dikes, a length of coast creates, And giant Thebes begins her hundred gates, Mammoth of human works! her grandeur known These thousand lustres by its wrecks alone; Wrecks that humiliate still all modern states, Press the poized earth with their enormous weights, Refuse to quit their place, dissolve their frame And trust, like Ilion, to the bards their fame. Memphis amass'd her piles, that still o'erclimb The clouds of heaven, and task the tooth of time; Belus and Brama tame their vagrant throngs, And Homer, with his monumental songs, Builds far more durable his splendid throne Than all the Pharaohs with their hills of stone. High roll'd the round of years that hung sublime These wondrous beacons in the night of time; Studs of renown! that to thine eyes attest The waste of ages that beyond them rest; Ages how fill'd with toils! how gloom'd with woes! Trod with all steps that man's long march compose, Dim drear disastrous; ere his foot could gain A height so brilliant o'er the bestial train. In those blank periods, where no man can trace The gleams of thought that first illumed his race, His errors, twined with science, took their birth, And forged their fetters for this child of earth. And when, as oft, he dared expand his view, And work with nature on the line she drew, Some monster, gender'd in his fears, unmann'd His opening soul, and marr'd the works he plann'd. Fear, the first passion of his helpless state, Redoubles all the woes that round him wait, Blocks nature's path and sends him wandering wide, Without a guardian and without a guide. Beat by the storm, refresht by gentle rain, By sunbeams cheer'd or founder'd in the main, He bows to every force he can't control, Indows them all with intellect and soul, With passions various, turbulent and strong, Rewarding virtue and avenging wrong, Gives heaven and earth to their supernal doom, And swells their sway beyond the closing tomb. Hence rose his gods, that mystic monstrous lore Of blood-stain'd altars and of priestly power, Hence blind credulity on all dark things, False morals hence, and hence the yoke of kings.