mourns the encumber'd land it's human load:
Too soon arrives the inauspicious hour;
The Natal Hour of the unhappy Man,
Who all his life goes mourning up and down
That there is neither bough, nor mud, nor straw
That he may take to make himself a hut;
No, not in all his native land a twig
That he may take, nor spot of green grass turf,
Where without trespass he may set his foot.
Now Want and Poverty wage War with Love;
And hard the conflict: horrible the thought,
That Love, who boasts of his all-conquering impulse,
Should have to mourn abortive energies...
But in proportion as Mankind increase,
So evils multiply: till Nature's self,
(The native passions of the human mind)
Engender War; which thins, and segregates,
And rectifies the balance of the world:
As thick-sown plants in the vegetable world,
With stretching branches wage continual War;
Each tender bud shrinks from the foreign touch
With a degree of sensitive perception;
Till one deforms, o'er-tops, and kills the other.
Like Summer swarms, that quit their native hives,
The offspring of increasing families,
Who find no room beneath their father's roofs,
No patrimony nor employ at home,
Colleagu'd in bands explore the desart wilds,
To seek adventures; or to seek their food:
If chance they meet with rovers (like themselves)
Whose home is far away in distant vales,
Behind the mountains, or beyond the lake;
Instinctively they war where'er they meet:
The friendly parley cannot intervene;
The unknown tongue does but create alarm:
With jealous fears, stern looks, and brandish'd arms,
They stand aloof: as birds of distant groves
At the strange note prepare for instant War.
At first they skirmishing dispute the right
Of hunting in the unappropriate waste:
But every onset aggravates their hate;
Till each increasing force, whetting their swords,
With purpos'd malice seeking out the foe,
Alternate by reprisal and revenge,
Doubly compensate each discomfiture,
Yet seek not to attack each-other's home,
Where Age, and Infancy, in safety dwell:
They war but with freebooters: private Peace
And Female Covert, Valour scorns to assail.
But when in evil hour some female hand,
Whether by force of Love, or force of Arms,
Is led across the desart by the Foe;
The jealous fury kindles to a flame:
No longer sacred the domestic hearth:
Fire, Death, and Devastation, mark their way,
And all the horrid crimes of savage War.
Now War becomes the business of the State:
The mos