Trembling he wak'd, and rofe with anxious heart;
His country laws forbad him to depart :
What should he do? "Twas death to go away;
And the God menac'd if he dar'd to stay :
All day he doubted, and when night came on,
Sleep, and the fame forewarning dream, begun :
Once more the God stood threatning o'er his head;
With added curses if he disobey'd.
Twice warn'd, he study'd flight; but would convey,
At once, his perfon and his wealth away:
Thus while he linger'd, his defign was heard;
A fpeedy procefs form'd, and death declar'd.
Witness there needed none of his offence,
Against himself the wretch was evidence:
Condemn'd, and deftitute of human aid,
To him, for whom he fuffer'd, thus he pray'd.
O Pow'r, who haft deferv'd in heav'n a throne
Not giv'n, but by thy labors made thy own,
Pity thy fuppliant, and protect his caufe,
Whom thou haft made obnoxious to the laws.
A custom was of old, and ftill remains,
Which life or death by fuffrages ordains;
White ftones and black within an urn are caft,
The firft abfolve, but fate is in the last.
The judges to the common urn bequeath
Their votes, and drop the fable figns of death ;
The box receives all black; but pour'd from thence The ftones came candid forth, the hue of in
Thus Alimonides his fafety won,
Preferv'd from death by Alcumena's fon:
Then to his kinfman God his vows he pays,
And cuts with profp'rous gales th' Ionian seas :
He leaves Tarentum, favor'd by the wind,
And Thurine bays, and Temifes, behind;
Soft Sibaris, and all the capes that stand
Along the shore, he makes in fight of land;
Still doubling, and still coafting, till he found
The mouth of Æfaris, and promis'd ground:
Then faw where, on the margin of the flood,
The tomb that held the bones of Croton flood:
Here, by the God's command, he built and wall'd
The place predicted; and Crotona call'd:
Thus fame, from time to time, delivers down
The fure tradition of th' Italian town.
Here dwelt the man divine whom Samos bore, But now felf-banish'd from his native shore, Because he hated tyrants, nor could bear
The chains which none but fervile fouls will wear: He, tho from heav'n remote, to heav'n could move, With ftrength of mind, and tread th' abyss above;
And penetrate, with his interior light,
Those upper depths, which Nature hid from fight: And what he had obferv'd, and learnt from thence, Lov'd in familiar language to difpenfe.
The crowd with filent admiration ftand,
And heard him, as they heard their God's command;
While he difcours'd of heav'n's myfterious laws,
The world's original, and nature's cause;
And what was God, and why the fleecy fnows
In filence fell, and rattling winds arofe;
What shook the ftedfaft earth, and whence begun
The dance of planets round the radiant fun;
If thunder was the voice of angry Jove,
Or clouds, with nitre pregnant, burst above:
Of these, and things beyond the common reach,
He fpoke, and charm'd his audience with his fpeech.
He first the tafte of flesh from tables drove,
And argu'd well, if arguments could move.
O mortals! from your fellows blood abstain,
Nor taint your bodies with a food profane:
While corn and pulfe by nature are bestow'd,
And planted orchards bend their willing load;
While labor'd gardens wholfom herbs produce,
And teeming vines afford their gen'rous juice;
Nor tardier fruits of cruder kind are lost,
But tam'd with fire, or mellow'd by the froft;
While kine to pails diftended udders bring,
And bees their honey redolent of fpring;
While earth not only can your needs fupply,
But, lavish of her store, provides for luxury;
A guiltless feast administers with ease,
And without blood is prodigal to please.
Wild beafts their maws with their flain brethren
And yet not all, for fome refufe to kill:
Sheep, goats, and oxen, and the nobler steed,
On browz, and corn, the flow'ry meadows feed.
Bears, tigers, wolves, the lion's angry brood,
Whom heav'n endu'd with principles of blood,
He wifely funder'd from the rest, to yell
In forests, and in lonely caves to dwell,
Where stronger beasts opprefs the weak by might,
And all in prey and purple feafts delight.
O impious ufe! to Nature's laws oppos'd,
Where bowels are in other bowels clos'd:
Where, fatten'd by their fellow's fat, they thrive;
Maintain'd by murder, and by death they live.
'Tis then for nought that mother earth provides
The stores of all the fhows, and all the hides,
If men with fleshly morfels must be fed,
And chaw with bloody teeth the breathing
What else is this but to devour our guests,
And barb'rously renew Cyclopean feasts!
We, by deftroying life, our life fuftain;
And gorge th' ungodly maw with meats obfcene.
Not fo the golden age, who fed on fruit,
Nor durft with bloody meals their mouths pollute.
Then birds in airy space might fafely move,
And tim'rous hares on heaths fecurely rove:
Nor needed fish the guileful hooks to fear,
For all was peaceful, and that peace fincere.
Whoever was the wretch (and curs'd be he)
That envy'd first our food's fimplicity;
Th' effay of bloody feafts on brutes began,
And after forg'd the fword to murder man.
Had he the fharpen'd steel alone employ'd
On beafts of prey that other beasts destroy'd,
Or men invaded with their fangs and paws,
This had been juftify'd by Nature's laws,
And felf-defence: but who did feafts begin
Of flesh, he stretch'd neceffity to fin.
To kill man-killers, man has lawful pow'r,
But not th' extended licence, to devour.
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