Nor he recall’d within his heedless thought The warning lesson by Prometheus taught: That he disclaim each present from the skies, And straight restore, lest ill to man arise: But he received; and conscious knew too late Th’ insidious gift, and felt the curse of fate. On earth of yore the sons of men abode, From evil free and labour’s galling load: Free from diseases that with racking rage Precipitate the pale decline of age. Now swift the days of manhood haste away, And misery’s pressure turns the temples gray. The woman’s hands an ample casket bear; She lifts the lid; she scatters ills in air. Within [40]th’ unbroken vase Hope sole remained, Beneath the vessel’s rim from flight detained: The maid, by counsels of cloud-gathering Jove, The coffer seal’d and dropp’d the lid above. Issued the rest in quick dispersion hurl’d, And woes innumerous roam’d the breathing world: With ills the land is rife, with ills the sea, Diseases haunt our frail humanity: Through noon, through night [41]on casual wing they glide, Silent, a voice the Power all-wise denied. Thus mayst thou not elude th’ omniscient mind: Now if thy thoughts be to my speech inclin’d, I in brief phrase would other lore impart Wisely and well: thou, grave it on thy heart. When gods alike and mortals rose to birth, A golden race th’ immortals form’d on earth Of many-languaged men: they lived of old When Saturn reign’d in heaven, an age of gold. Like gods they lived, with calm untroubled mind; Free from the toils and anguish of our kind: Nor e’er decrepid age mishaped their frame, The hand’s, the foot’s proportions still the same. Strangers to ill, their lives in feasts flow’d by: [42]Wealthy in flocks; dear to the blest on high: Dying they sank in sleep, nor seem’d to die. Theirs was each good; the life-sustaining soil Yielded its copious fruits, unbribed by toil: They with abundant goods midst quiet lands All willing shared the gatherings of their hands. When earth’s dark womb had closed this race around, [43]High Jove as dæmons raised them from the ground. Earth-wandering spirits they their charge began, The ministers of good, and guards of man. Mantled with mist of darkling air they glide, And compass earth, and pass on every side: And mark with earnest vigilance of eyes Where just deeds live, or crooked wrongs arise: [44]Their kingly state; and, delegate from heaven, By their vicarious hands [45]the wealth of fields is given. The gods then form’d a second race of man, Degenerate far; and silver years began. Unlike the mortals of a golden kind: Unlike in frame of limbs and mould of mind. Yet still [46]a hundred years beheld the boy Beneath the mother’s roof, her infant joy; All tender and unform’d: but when the flower