NOTE: 
176 Secures edition 1813.

5.

’Thus do the generations of the earth
Go to the grave, and issue from the womb,
Surviving still the imperishable change
That renovates the world; even as the leaves
Which the keen frost-wind of the waning year 5
Has scattered on the forest soil, and heaped
For many seasons there—­though long they choke,
Loading with loathsome rottenness the land,
All germs of promise, yet when the tall trees
From which they fell, shorn of their lovely shapes, 10
Lie level with the earth to moulder there,
They fertilize the land they long deformed,
Till from the breathing lawn a forest springs
Of youth, integrity, and loveliness,
Like that which gave it life, to spring and die. 15
Thus suicidal selfishness, that blights
The fairest feelings of the opening heart,
Is destined to decay, whilst from the soil
Shall spring all virtue, all delight, all love,
And judgement cease to wage unnatural war 20
With passion’s unsubduable array. 
Twin-sister of religion, selfishness! 
Rival in crime and falsehood, aping all
The wanton horrors of her bloody play;
Yet frozen, unimpassioned, spiritless, 25
Shunning the light, and owning not its name,
Compelled, by its deformity, to screen,
With flimsy veil of justice and of right,
Its unattractive lineaments, that scare
All, save the brood of ignorance:  at once 30
The cause and the effect of tyranny;
Unblushing, hardened, sensual, and vile;
Dead to all love but of its abjectness,
With heart impassive by more noble powers
Than unshared pleasure, sordid gain, or fame; 35
Despising its own miserable being,
Which still it longs, yet fears to disenthrall.

’Hence commerce springs, the venal interchange
Of all that human art or nature yield;
Which wealth should purchase not, but want demand, 40
And natural kindness hasten to supply
From the full fountain of its boundless love,
For ever stifled, drained, and tainted now. 
Commerce! beneath whose poison-breathing shade
No solitary virtue dares to spring, 45
But Poverty and Wealth with equal hand
Scatter their withering curses, and unfold
The doors of premature and violent death,
To pining famine and full-fed disease,
To all that shares the lot of human life, 50
Which poisoned, body and soul, scarce drags the chain,
That lengthens as it goes and clanks behind.