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| THE REIGN of old Saturn is highly renown’d | |
| For many fine things that no longer are found, | |
| Trees always in blossom, men free from all pains, | |
| And shepherds as mild as the sheep on their plains. | |
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| In the midland equator, dispensing his sway, | 5 |
| The sun, they pretended, pursued his bright way, | |
| Not rambled, unsteady, to regions remote, | |
| To talk, once a year, with the crab and the goat. | |
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| From a motion like this, have the sages explain’d, | |
| How summer for ever her empire maintain’d; | 10 |
| While the turf of the fields by the plough was unbroke, | |
| And a house for the shepherd, the boughs of an oak. | |
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| Yet some say there never was seen on this stage | |
| What poets affirm of that innocent age, | |
| When the brutal creation from bondage was free, | 15 |
| And men were exactly what mankind should be. | |
| |
| But why should they labor to prove it a dream?— | |
| The poets of old were in love with the theme, | |
| And, leaving to others mere truth to repeat, | |
| In the regions of fancy they found it complete. | 20 |
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| Three ages have been on this globe, they pretend; | |
| And the fourth, some have thought, is to be without end; | |
| The first was of gold—but a fifth, we will say, | |
| Has already begun, and is now on its way. | |
| |
| Since the days of Arcadia, if ever there shined | 25 |
| A ray of the first on the heads of mankind, | |
| Let the learned dispute—but with us it is clear, | |
| That the era of paper was realized here. | |
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| Four ages, however, at least have been told, | |
| The first is compared to the purest of gold— | 30 |
| But, as bad luck would have it, its circles were few, | |
| And the next was of silver—if Ovid says true. | |
| |
| But this, like the former, did rapidly pass— | |
| While that which came after was nothing but brass— | |
| An age of mere tinkers—and when it was lost, | 35 |
| Hard iron succeeded—we know to our cost. | |
| |
| And hence you may fairly infer, if you please, | |
| That we ’re nothing but blacksmiths of various degrees, | |
| Since each has a weapon, of one kind or other, | |
| To stir up the coals, and to shake at his brother. | 40 |
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| Should the Author of nature reverse his decree, | |
| And bring back the age we ’re so anxious to see, | |
| Agreement alas!—you would look for in vain, | |
| The stuff might be changed, but the staff would remain. | |
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| The lawyer would still find a client to fleece, | 45 |
| The doctor, a patient to pack off in peace, | |
| The parson, some hundreds of hearers prepared, | |
| To measure his gifts by the length of his beard. | |
| |
| Old Momus would still have some cattle to lead, | |
| Who would hug his opinions, and swallow his creed— | 50 |
| So it ’s best, I presume, that things are as they are— | |
| If iron ’s the meanest—we ’ve nothing to fear. | |
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