WORKS.
15
Adds thievish manners, adds insidious lies,
And prattled speech of sprightly railleries:
Then by the wise interpreter of heaven
The name Pandora to the maid was given:
Since all in heaven conferr'd their gifts to charm,
For man's inventive race, this beauteous harm.
When now the Sire had form'd this mischief fair,
He bade heaven's messenger convey through air
To Epimetheus' hands th' inextricable snare:
Nor he recall'd within his heedless thought
The warning lesson by Prometheus taught:
That he disclaim each present from the skies,
And straight restore, lest ill to man arise:
But he received; and conscious knew too late
Th' insidious gift, and felt the curse of fate.
On earth of yore the sons of men abode,
From evil free and labour's galling load:
Free from diseases that with racking rage
Precipitate the pale decline of age.
Now swift the days of manhood haste away,
And misery's pressure turns the temples gray.
And prattled speech of sprightly railleries:
Then by the wise interpreter of heaven
The name Pandora to the maid was given:
Since all in heaven conferr'd their gifts to charm,
For man's inventive race, this beauteous harm.
When now the Sire had form'd this mischief fair,
He bade heaven's messenger convey through air
To Epimetheus' hands th' inextricable snare:
Nor he recall'd within his heedless thought
The warning lesson by Prometheus taught:
That he disclaim each present from the skies,
And straight restore, lest ill to man arise:
But he received; and conscious knew too late
Th' insidious gift, and felt the curse of fate.
On earth of yore the sons of men abode,
From evil free and labour's galling load:
Free from diseases that with racking rage
Precipitate the pale decline of age.
Now swift the days of manhood haste away,
And misery's pressure turns the temples gray.
have possessed a supernatural power of velocity, like the seven-leagued boots, or the shoes of swiftness, in the Tales of the Giants.
