156 ORIGIN OF SOCIETY. CANTO iv. 



Tuned by thy hand the dulcet harp she rings, 

 And sounds responsive echo from the strings; 

 Bright scenes of bliss in trains suggested move,. 

 And charm the world with melody and love. 



III. " SOON the fair forms with vital being bless'd, 

 Time's feeble children, lose the boon possess'd; 

 The goaded fibre ceases to obey, 

 And sense deserts the uncontractile clay; 340 



While births unnumber'd, ere the parents die, 

 The hourly waste of lovely life supply ; 

 And thus, alternating with death, fulfil 

 The silent mandates of the Almighty Will; 

 Whose hand unseen the works of nature dooms 

 By laws unknown WHO GIVES, AND WHO RESUMES. 



" Each pregnant Oak ten thousand acorns forms 



Profusely scatter'd by autumnal storms; 



The goaded jibre, 1. 339- Old age consists in the inaptitude to 

 motion from the inirritability of the system, and the consequent 

 want of fibrous contraction; see Additional Note VU. 



