The Virtues, in despair, quit the earth; and the depravity of man becomes universal and complete.
Hard steel succeeded then, And stubborn as the metal were the men. Truth, modesty, and shame, the world forsook; Fraud, avarice, and force, their places took. Then sails were spread to every wind that blew, Raw were the sailors and the depths were new; Trees, rudely hollow’d did the waves sustain, Ere ships in triumph plough’d the watery plain.