By trenches deep, laid open to the plain;
Nor brazen trump, nor bended horn were seen,
Helmet, nor sword; but conscious and secure,
Unaw'd by arms the nations tranquil slept.
The teeming earth by barrows yet unras'd,
By ploughs unwounded, plenteous pour'd her stores.
Content with food unforc'd, man pluck'd with ease
Young strawberries from the mountains; cornels red;
The thorny bramble's fruit; and acorns shook
From Jove's wide-spreading tree. Spring ever smil'd;
And placid Zephyr foster'd with his breeze
The flowers unsown, which everlasting bloom'd.
Untill'd the land its welcome produce gave,
And unmanur'd its hoary crop renew'd.
Here streams of milk, there streams of nectar flow'd;
And from the ilex, drop by drop distill'd,
The yellow honey fell. But, Saturn down
To dusky Tartarus banish'd, all the world
By Jove was govern'd. Then a silver age
Succeeded; by the golden far excell'd;--
Itself surpassing far the age of brass.
The ancient durance of perpetual spring
He shorten'd, and in seasons four the year
Divided:--Winter, summer, lessen'd spring,
And various temper'd autumn first were known.
Then first the air with parching fervor dry,
Glow'd hot;--then ice congeal'd by piercing winds
Hung pendent;--houses then first shelter'd man;
Houses by caverns form'd, with thick shrubs fenc'd,
And boughs entwin'd with osiers. Then the grain
Of Ceres first in lengthen'd furrows lay;
And oxen groan'd beneath the weighty yoke.
Third after these a brazen race succeeds,
More stern in soul, and more in furious war
Delighting;--still to wicked deeds averse.
The last from stubborn iron took its name;--
And now rush'd in upon the wretched race
All impious villainies: Truth, faith, and shame,
Fled far; while enter'd fraud, and force, and craft,
And plotting, with detested avarice.
To winds scarce known the seaman boldly loos'd
His sails, and ships which long on lofty hills
Had rested, bounded o'er the unsearch'd waves.
The cautious measurer now with spacious line
Mark'd out the land, in common once to all;
Free as the sun-beams, or the lucid air.
Nor would the fruits and aliments suffice,
The rich earth from her surface threw, but deep
Within her womb they digg'd, and thence display'd,
Riches, of crimes the prompter, hid far deep
Close by the Stygian shades. Now murderous steel,
And gold more murderous enter'd into day: