Page:Poems - Southey (1799) volume 2.djvu/75

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That thro' the infinite progressivenessComplete our perfect bliss."Even such, so blest,Save that the memory of no sorrows pastHeightened the present joy, our world was once,In the first æra of its innocenceEre man had learnt to bow the knee to man.Was there a youth whom warm affection fill'd,He spake his honest heart; the earliest fruitsHis toil produced, the sweetest flowers that deck'dThe sunny bank, he gather'd for the maid,Nor she disdain'd the gift; for Vice not yetHad burst the dungeons of her hell, and rear'dThose artificial boundaries that divideMan from his species. State of blessedness!Till that ill-omen'd hour when Cain's stern sonDelved in the bowels of the earth for gold,Accursed bane of virtue! of such forceAs poets feign dwelt in the Gorgon's locks,Which whoso saw, felt instant the life-blood
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