And still new needs, new helps, new habits rise,
That graft benevolence on charities.
Still as one brood, and as another rose,
These nat'ral love maintain'd, habitual those: 140
The last, scarce ripen'd into perfect man,
Saw helpless him from whom their life began:
Mem'ry and forecast just returns engage,
That pointed back to youth, this one to age;
While pleasure, gratitude, and hope combin'd, 145
Still spread the int'rest, and preserv'd the kind.
Nor think in nature's state they blindly trod;
The state of nature was the reign of God:
Self-love and social at her birth began,
Union the bond of all things, and of man. 150
Pride then was not, nor arts that pride to aid;
Man walk'd with beast, joint tenant of the shade;
The same his table, and the same his bed;
No murder cloth'd him, and no murder fed.
In the same temple, the resounding wood, 155
All vocal beings hymn'd their equal God:
The shrine with gore unstain'd, with gold undress'd,
Unbrib'd, unbloody, stood the blameless priest.
Heaven's attribute was universal care,
And man's prerogative to rule, but spare. 160
Ah! how unlike the man of times to come!
Of half that live the butcher and the tomb;
Who, foe to nature, hears the gen'ral groan,
Murders their species, and betrays his own.
But
