Had revolutions numberless to run
Ere they harrowed fields, guided the curved ploughs,
Planted young orchards, or lopped rotting boughs.
Meanwhile they gathered Earth’s alms, well content
With the chance harvests sunshine, showers sent;
Though food on which our ancestors relied
Was that the boundless woods of oak supplied.
Acorns were their mainstay, with, in large store,
Berries that young Earth’s teeming fallows bore.
They felt not how miserable they were;