A tigress sating with the flesh of lambs
The unnatural famine of her toothless cubs, 80
Whilst shouts and howlings through the desert rang,
Sloping and smooth the daisy-spangled lawn,
Offering sweet incense to the sunrise, smiles
To see a babe before his mother’s door,
Sharing his morning’s meal 85
With the green and golden basilisk
That comes to lick his feet.

’Those trackless deeps, where many a weary sail
Has seen above the illimitable plain,
Morning on night, and night on morning rise, 90
Whilst still no land to greet the wanderer spread
Its shadowy mountains on the sun-bright sea,
Where the loud roarings of the tempest-waves
So long have mingled with the gusty wind
In melancholy loneliness, and swept 95
The desert of those ocean solitudes,
But vocal to the sea-bird’s harrowing shriek,
The bellowing monster, and the rushing storm,
Now to the sweet and many-mingling sounds
Of kindliest human impulses respond. 100
Those lonely realms bright garden-isles begem,
With lightsome clouds and shining seas between,
And fertile valleys, resonant with bliss,
Whilst green woods overcanopy the wave,
Which like a toil-worn labourer leaps to shore, 105
To meet the kisses of the flow’rets there.

’All things are recreated, and the flame
Of consentaneous love inspires all life: 
The fertile bosom of the earth gives suck
To myriads, who still grow beneath her care, 110
Rewarding her with their pure perfectness: 
The balmy breathings of the wind inhale
Her virtues, and diffuse them all abroad: 
Health floats amid the gentle atmosphere,
Glows in the fruits, and mantles on the stream:  115
No storms deform the beaming brow of Heaven,
Nor scatter in the freshness of its pride
The foliage of the ever-verdant trees;
But fruits are ever ripe, flowers ever fair,
And Autumn proudly bears her matron grace, 120
Kindling a flush on the fair cheek of Spring,
Whose virgin bloom beneath the ruddy fruit
Reflects its tint, and blushes into love.

’The lion now forgets to thirst for blood: 
There might you see him sporting in the sun 125
Beside the dreadless kid; his claws are sheathed,
His teeth are harmless, custom’s force has made
His nature as the nature of a lamb. 
Like passion’s fruit, the nightshade’s tempting bane
Poisons no more the pleasure it bestows:  130
All bitterness is past; the cup of joy
Unmingled mantles to the goblet’s brim,
And courts the thirsty lips it fled before.