The unprevailing hoariness of age,                          440
     And man, once fleeting o'er the transient scene
     Swift as an unremembered vision, stands
     Immortal upon earth: no longer now
     He slays the beast that sports around his dwelling
     And horribly devours its mangled flesh,                     445
     Or drinks its vital blood, which like a stream
     Of poison thro' his fevered veins did flow
     Feeding a plague that secretly consumed
     His feeble frame, and kindling in his mind
     Hatred, despair, and fear and vain belief,                  450
     The germs of misery, death, disease and crime.
     No longer now the winged habitants,
     That in the woods their sweet lives sing away,
     Flee from the form of man; but gather round,
     And prune their sunny feathers on the hands                 455
     Which little children stretch in friendly sport
     Towards these dreadless partners of their play.
     All things are void of terror: man has lost
     His desolating privilege, and stands
     An equal amidst equals: happiness                           460
     And science dawn though late upon the earth;
     Peace cheers the mind, health renovates the frame;
     Disease and pleasure cease to mingle here,
     Reason and passion cease to combat there;
     Whilst mind unfettered o'er the earth extends               465
     Its all-subduing energies, and wields
     The sceptre of a vast dominion there.

       Mild is the slow necessity of death:
     The tranquil spirit fails beneath its grasp,
     Without a groan, almost without a fear,                     470
     Resigned in peace to the necessity,
     Calm as a voyager to some distant land,
     And full of wonder, full of hope as he.
     The deadly germs of languor and disease
     Waste in the human frame, and Nature gifts                  475
     With choicest boons her human worshippers.
     How vigorous now the athletic form of age!
     How clear its open and unwrinkled brow!
     Where neither avarice, cunning, pride, or care,
     Had stamped the seal of grey deformity                      480
     On all the mingling lineaments of time.
     How lovely the intrepid front of youth!
     How sweet the smiles of taintless infancy.

       Within the massy prison's mouldering courts,
     Fearless and free the ruddy children play,                  485
     Weaving gay chaplets for their innocent brows
     With the green ivy and the red wall-flower,
     That mock the dungeon's unavailing gloom;
     The ponderous chains, and gratings of strong iron,
     There rust amid the accumulated ruins                       490
     Now mingling slowly with their native earth:
     There the broad beam of day, which feebly once
     Lighted the cheek of lean captivity
     With a pale and sickly glare, now freely shines
     On the pure smiles of infant playfulness:                   495
     No more the shuddering voice of hoarse despair
     Peals through the echoing vaults, but soothing notes
     Of ivy-fingered winds and gladsome birds
     And merriment are resonant around.

       The fanes of Fear and Falsehood hear no more              500
     The voice that once waked multitudes to war
     Thundering thro' all their aisles: but now respond
     To the