The works of John Dryden Illustrated with notes, historical, critical, and explanatory, and a life of the author, by Sir Walter Scott |
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 | The works of John Dryden |  |
Scarce had the Power distinguished these, when straight
The stars, no longer overlaid with weight,
Exert their heads from underneath the mass,
And upward shoot, and kindle as they pass,
And with diffusive light adorn their heavenly place.
Then, every void of nature to supply,
With forms of gods he fills the vacant sky:
New herds of beasts he sends, the plains to share;
New colonies of birds, to people air;
And to their oozy beds the finny fish repair.
A creature of a more exalted kind
Was wanting yet, and then was man designed;
Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast,
For empire formed, and fit to rule the rest:
Whether with particles of heavenly fire
The God of nature did his soul inspire;
Or earth, but new divided from the sky,
And pliant still, retained the ethereal energy;
Which wise Prometheus tempered into paste,
And, mixed with living streams, the god-like image cast.
Thus, while the mute creation downward bend
Their sight, and to their earthy mother tend,
Man looks aloft, and, with erected eyes,
Beholds his own hereditary skies.—
From such rude principles our form began,
And earth was metamorphosed into man.
The stars, no longer overlaid with weight,
Exert their heads from underneath the mass,
And upward shoot, and kindle as they pass,
And with diffusive light adorn their heavenly place.
Then, every void of nature to supply,
With forms of gods he fills the vacant sky:
New herds of beasts he sends, the plains to share;
New colonies of birds, to people air;
And to their oozy beds the finny fish repair.
A creature of a more exalted kind
Was wanting yet, and then was man designed;
Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast,
For empire formed, and fit to rule the rest:
Whether with particles of heavenly fire
The God of nature did his soul inspire;
Or earth, but new divided from the sky,
And pliant still, retained the ethereal energy;
Which wise Prometheus tempered into paste,
And, mixed with living streams, the god-like image cast.
Thus, while the mute creation downward bend
Their sight, and to their earthy mother tend,
Man looks aloft, and, with erected eyes,
Beholds his own hereditary skies.—
From such rude principles our form began,
And earth was metamorphosed into man.
| The works of John Dryden | |