Original poems on several subjects :: :: University of Virginia Library

Behold! in yonder study plac'd,
Form'd with true principles of taste,
Stella in learn'd retirement sits,
Amid a group of sleeping wits.
Sleeping, but not on down or chaff,
But in a book-case, bound in calf;

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Cover'd with honourable dust,
As medals spread with precious rust.
Before her still some volume lies,
She studies with quadruple eyes.
Some love-stuff'd comedy perchance,
Or Sophonisba, a romance.
The science of the kitchen taught,
How pasties and confections wrought.
What Tillotson or Barrow wrote,
For modish theologues to quote.
Perhaps, her Pray'r-book, or her Bible,
Which wits and geniuses would libel.
Nay; nothing farther from her study,
Writings, that make one's brains quite muddy,
Or the reverse, and full as bad,
Make wilding Fancy run stark mad.
Earth's smaller wits would she despise,
To soar with Newton to the skies;
Living, cameleon-like, when there,
Most sentimentally on air.
Newton, who, with Lyncean eye,
Travers'd the whole capacious sky;
Who from some angel stole that plan,
Which seems above mere mortal man!

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That plan, where worlds and systems great
Roll, by fix'd laws, in glorious state.

In her this adage prov'd we find,
“Earth ne'er can satisfy the mind;
“The mind, a stranger to content,
“Beneath the moon ignobly pent.”
Besides, what doth the text require?
“To Heav'n still let the soul aspire.”
For where abides her treasure, she
Thinks there her heart should ever be.
Thus she fulfills—in Newton's school,
Each truly pious, Christian rule.
Nor ask another reason, why
Astronomers affect the sky.
Let others read with head alert,
Stella reads with enlighten'd heart.
Let others chariots gilt admire,
Stella mounts Newton's car of fire;
Not through the Mall, her steeds all foam,
But o'er Heav'n's argent fields to roam.

Thus arguments our fair, mayhap,
“Earth's but a point in Nature's map;
“A little toy to Fortune thrown,
“As from the tube the bubble blown;

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“In the dimensionless abyss,
“Where one world lost we scarcely miss,
“An atom, till the zephyr fails,
“On which a midge in triumph sails;
“A particle of sand, cast out,
“Through boundless space to roam about;
“Then, from its equilibrium tost,
“In matter's mass collective lost:
“Why then, ambition all forgot,
“Inhabit this poor paltry spot,
“Which meanest reptiles share with us,
“And live, not more a monarch does?”

Of fashions Stella seldom talks,
Of auctions, sales, or public walks,
The ball, assembly, play, or rout,
Which half the sex grow mad about.
These, left to the phantastic lass,
Who can whole days at toilets pass,
The strange task hackney'd o'er and o'er,
To be—less charming than before;
Her only glass, view'd with intense
Survey, the telescopic lens.
On planets, stars, and comets, she
Can scarce one moment silent be;

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Far other stars than grandee's coat on,
Which only unlearn'd females dote on,
Which such alone fantastic prize,
As Fate ne'er destin'd for the skies.

Newton's arcanas Stella can
Sublimely—trust to learned men;
The laws of Gravity conceive,
While triumphs vast her bosom heave,
Mere household females ey'd with scorn,
Better than thousands—never born;
Or when, sometimes, her passions strong
Would gravitate towards the wrong.
The force centripetal she knows,
That is, when she puts on her cloaths,
That no pin from its hold departs,
Nor from her waist the whalebone starts:
Centrifugal, when from her eye
Sparks of ingenious passion fly;
When words (such sweets no wild bee sips)
Fly off eccentric from her lips.
Thus, without Euclid, Stella shows,
The deep, deep mystery she knows,
What strains it fitly can express?
To speak (astonishing!) and dress.

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Nor to yon brighten'd fields of air
Soars only our exalted fair,
Whirl'd (no example to her sex ill)
On ev'ry planet's flaming axle;
But condescends, of problems weary,
To lose a thought on Burnet's Theory,
Which doubtless she can understand,
Like any—lady of our land;
Distress'd (the total who can tell huge?)
To find out waters for the deluge;
Doubting, as if a God of fable,
Jehovah to produce them able.

Of thoughts too to improve her stock,
She much affects to dote on Locke;
That mortal pitch'd upon, to show
Reason how near divine below;
Happy, not from the task he shrinks,
But for her most humanely—thinks.
He surely her esteem must share,
Who lightens Stella's heaviest care;
And the esteem of womankind,
Who hence some good will always find;
For busy'd thus, from Stella's lips
Scandal no poison ever sips.