It is with his _Spring_ that we are chiefly concerned, since it is in that division of his great poem that he eloquently contrasts the two very opposite diets. Singing the glories of the annual birth-time and general resurrection of Nature, he first celebrates “The living Herbs, profusely wild, O’er all the deep-green Earth, beyond the power Of botanist to number up their tribes, (Whether he steals along the lonely dale In silent search, or through the forest, rank With what the dull incurious weeds account, Bursts his blind way, or climbs the mountain-rock, Fired by the nodding verdure of its brow). With such a liberal hand has Nature flung Their seeds abroad, blown them about in winds, Innumerous mixed them with the nursing mould, The moistening current and prolific rain. But who their virtues can declare? Who pierce, With vision pure, into those secret stores Of health and life and joy--the food of man, While yet he lived in innocence and told A length of golden years, unfleshed in blood? A stranger to the savage arts of life-- Death, rapine, carnage, surfeit, and disease-- The Lord, and not the Tyrant, of the world.” And then goes on to picture the feast of blood:-- “And yet the wholesome herb neglected dies, Though with the pure exhilarating soul Of nutriment and health, and vital powers Beyond the search of Art, ’tis copious blessed. For, with hot ravin fired, ensanguined Man Is now become the Lion of the plain And worse. The Wolf, who from the nightly fold Fierce drags the bleating Prey, ne’er drank her milk, Nor wore her warming fleece; nor has the Steer, At whose strong chest the deadly Tiger hangs, E’er ploughed for him. They, too, are tempered high, With hunger stung and wild necessity, Nor lodges pity in their shaggy breast. But Man, whom Nature formed of milder clay, With every kind emotion in his heart, And taught alone to weep; while from her lap She pours ten thousand delicacies--herbs And fruits, as numerous as the drops of rain Or beams that gave them birth--shall he, fair form, Who wears sweet smiles and looks erect on heaven, E’er stoop to mingle with the prowling herd And dip his tongue in gore? The beast of prey, Blood-stained, deserves to bleed. But you, ye Flocks, What have you done? Ye peaceful people, what To merit death? You who have given us milk In luscious streams, and lent us your own coat Against the winter’s cold? And the plain Ox, That harmless, honest, guileless animal, In what has he offended? He, whose toil, Patient and ever ready, clothes the land With all the pomp of harvest--shall he bleed, And struggling groan beneath the cruel hands E’en of the clowns he feeds, and that, perhaps, To swell the riot of the autumnal feast Won by his labour?”[151]