But nature herself, Mother of things, was the first seed-sower And primal grafter; since the berries and acorns, Dropping from off the trees, would there beneath Put forth in season swarms of little shoots;Hence too men's fondness for ingrafting slips Upon the boughs and setting out in holes The young shrubs o'er the fields. Then would they try Ever new modes of tilling their loved crofts, And mark they would how earth improved the taste Of the wild fruits by fond and fostering care.
And day by day they'd force the woods to move Still higher up the mountain, and to yield The place below for tilth, that there they might, On plains and uplands, have their meadow-plats, Cisterns and runnels, crops of standing grain, And happy vineyards, and that all along O'er hillocks, intervales, and plains might run The silvery-green belt of olive-trees, Marking the plotted landscape; even as now Thou seest so marked with varied loveliness All the terrain which men adorn and plant With rows of goodly fruit-trees and hedge round With thriving shrubberies sown.
But by the mouth To imitate the liquid notes of birds Was earlier far 'mongst men than power to make, By measured song, melodious verse and give Delight to ears. And whistlings of the wind Athrough the hollows of the reeds first taught The peasantry to blow into the stalks Of hollow hemlock-herb. Then bit by bit They learned sweet plainings, such as pipe out-pours, Beaten by finger-tips of singing men, When heard through unpathed groves and forest deeps And woodsy meadows, through the untrod haunts Of shepherd folk and spots divinely still.
Thus time draws forward each and everything Little by little unto the midst of men, And reason uplifts it to the shores of light.
These tunes would soothe and glad the minds of mortals When sated with food,- for songs are welcome then.
And often, lounging with friends in the soft grass Beside a river of water, underneath A big tree's branches, merrily they'd refresh Their frames, with no vast outlay- most of all If the weather were smiling and the times of the year Were painting the green of the grass around with flowers.
Then jokes, then talk, then peals of jollity Would circle round; for then the rustic muse Was in her glory; then would antic Mirth Prompt them to garland head and shoulders about With chaplets of intertwined flowers and leaves, And to dance onward, out of tune, with limbs Clownishly swaying, and with clownish foot To beat our mother earth- from whence arose Laughter and peals of jollity, for, lo, Such frolic acts were in their glory then, Being more new and strange. And wakeful men Found solaces for their unsleeping hours In drawing forth variety of notes, In modulating melodies, in running With puckered lips along the tuned reeds, Whence, even in our day do the watchmen guard These old traditions, and have learned well To keep true measure. And yet they no whit Do get a larger fruit of gladsomeness Than got the woodland aborigines In olden times. For what we have at hand-If theretofore naught sweeter we have known-That chiefly pleases and seems best of all;But then some later, likely better, find Destroys its worth and changes our desires Regarding good of yesterday.
And thus Began the loathing of the acorn; thus Abandoned were those beds with grasses strewn And with the leaves beladen. Thus, again, Fell into new contempt the pelts of beasts-Erstwhile a robe of honour, which, I guess, Aroused in those days envy so malign That the first wearer went to woeful death By ambuscades,- and yet that hairy prize, Rent into rags by greedy foemen there And splashed by blood, was ruined utterly Beyond all use or vantage. Thus of old 'Twas pelts, and of to-day 'tis purple and gold That cark men's lives with cares and weary with war.
Wherefore, methinks, resides the greater blame With us vain men to-day: for cold would rack, Without their pelts, the naked sons of earth;But us it nothing hurts to do without The purple vestment, broidered with gold And with imposing figures, if we still Make shift with some mean garment of the Plebs.
So man in vain futilities toils on Forever and wastes in idle cares his years-Because, of very truth, he hath not learnt What the true end of getting is, nor yet At all how far true pleasure may increase.
And 'tis desire for better and for more Hath carried by degrees mortality Out onward to the deep, and roused up From the far bottom mighty waves of war.
But sun and moon, those watchmen of the world, With their own lanterns traversing around The mighty, the revolving vault, have taught Unto mankind that seasons of the years Return again, and that the Thing takes place After a fixed plan and order fixed.
Already would they pass their life, hedged round By the strong towers; and cultivate an earth All portioned out and boundaried; already Would the sea flower and sail-winged ships;Already men had, under treaty pacts, Confederates and allies, when poets began To hand heroic actions down in verse;Nor long ere this had letters been devised-Hence is our age unable to look back On what has gone before, except where reason Shows us a footprint.
Sailings on the seas, Tillings of fields, walls, laws, and arms, and roads, Dress and the like, all prizes, all delights Of finer life, poems, pictures, chiselled shapes Of polished sculptures- all these arts were learned By practice and the mind's experience, As men walked forward step by eager step.
Thus time draws forward each and everything Little by little into the midst of men, And reason uplifts it to the shores of light.
For one thing after other did men see Grow clear by intellect, till with their arts They've now achieved the supreme pinnacle.
