The temple of nature :: :: University of Virginia Library

The temple of nature

or, the origin of society: a poem, with philosophical notes. By Erasmus Darwin

Darwin, Erasmus (1731-1802)

[section]

THE TEMPLE OF NATURE;

Collapse All | Expand All expand section

THE TEMPLE OF NATURE;

OR, THE ORIGIN OF SOCIETY

Unde hominum peeudumque genus, vitæque volantum,
Et quæ marmoreo fert monstra sub æquore pontus?
Igneus est illis vigor, & cælestis origo.
Virg. Æn. VI. 728.

CANTO I. PRODUCTION OF LIFE.

I.

By firm immutable immortal laws
Impress'd on Nature by the Great First Cause,
Say, Muse! how rose from elemental strife
Organic forms, and kindled into life;
How Love and Sympathy with potent charm
Warm the cold heart, the lifted hand disarm;
Allure with pleasures, and alarm with pains,
And bind Society in golden chains.

Four past eventful Ages then recite,
And give the fifth, new-born of Time, to light;
The silken tissue of their joys disclose,
Swell with deep chords the murmur of their woes;

Their laws, their labours, and their loves proclaim,
And chant their virtues to the trump of Fame.

Immortal Love! who ere the morn of Time,
On wings outstretch'd, o'er Chaos hung sublime;
Warm'd into life the bursting egg of Night,
And gave young Nature to admiring Light!—
You! whose wide arms, in soft embraces hurl'd
Round the vast frame, connect the whirling world!
Whether immers'd in day, the Sun your throne,
You gird the planets in your silver zone;
Or warm, descending on ethereal wing,
The Earth's cold bosom with the beams of spring;
Press drop to drop, to atom atom bind,
Link sex to sex, or rivet mind to mind;
Attend my song!—With rosy lips rehearse,
And with your polish'd arrows write my verse!—
So shall my lines soft-rolling eyes engage,
And snow-white fingers turn the volant page;

The smiles of Beauty all my toils repay,
And youths and virgins chant the living lay.

II.

Where Eden's sacred bowers triumphant sprung,
By angels guarded, and by prophets sung,
Wav'd o'er the east in purple pride unfurl'd,
And rock'd the golden cradle of the World;

Four sparkling currents lav'd with wandering tides
Their velvet avenues, and flowery sides;
On sun-bright lawns unclad the Graces stray'd,
And guiltless Cupids haunted every glade;
Till the fair Bride, forbidden shades among,
Heard unalarm'd the Tempter's serpent-tongue;
Eyed the sweet fruit, the mandate disobey'd,
And her fond Lord with sweeter smiles betray'd.
Conscious awhile with throbbing heart he strove,
Spread his wide arms, and barter'd life for love!—
Now rocks on rocks, in savage grandeur roll'd,
Steep above steep, the blasted plains infold;
The incumbent crags eternal tempest shrouds,
And livid light'nings cleave the lambent clouds;

Round the firm base loud-howling whirlwinds blow,
And sands in burning eddies dance below.

Hence ye profane!—the warring winds exclude
Unhallow'd throngs, that press with footstep rude;
But court the Muse's train with milder skies,
And call with softer voice the good and wise.
—Charm'd at her touch the opening wall divides,
And rocks of crystal form the polish'd sides;
Through the bright arch the Loves and Graces tread,
Innocuous thunders murmuring o'er their head;
Pair after pair, and tittering, as they pass,
View their fair features in the walls of glass;
Leave with impatient step the circling bourn,
And hear behind the closing rocks return.

Here, high in air, unconscious of the storm,
Thy temple, Nature, rears it's mystic form;
From earth to heav'n, unwrought by mortal toil,
Towers the vast fabric on the desert soil;

O'er many a league the ponderous domes extend,
And deep in earth the ribbed vaults descend;
A thousand jasper steps with circling sweep
Lead the slow votary up the winding steep;
Ten thousand piers, now join'd and now aloof,
Bear on their branching arms the fretted roof.

Unnumber'd ailes connect unnumber'd halls,
And sacred symbols crowd the pictur'd walls;
With pencil rude forgotten days design,
And arts, or empires, live in every line.

While chain'd reluctant on the marble ground,
Indignant Time reclines, by Sculpture bound;
And sternly bending o'er a scroll unroll'd,
Inscribes the future with his style of gold.
—So erst, when Proteus on the briny shore,
New forms assum'd of eagle, pard, or boar;
The wise Atrides bound in sea-weed thongs
The changeful god amid his scaly throngs;
Till in deep tones his opening lips at last
Reluctant told the future and the past.

Here o'er piazza'd courts, and long arcades,
The bowers of Pleasure root their waving shades;
Shed o'er the pansied moss a checker'd gloom,
Bend with new fruits, with flow'rs successive bloom.

Pleas'd, their light limbs on beds of roses press'd,
In slight undress recumbent Beauties rest;
On tiptoe steps surrounding Graces move,
And gay Desires expand their wings above.

Here young Dione arms her quiver'd Loves,
Schools her bright Nymphs, and practises her doves;
Calls round her laughing eyes in playful turns,
The glance that lightens, and the smile that burns;
Her dimpling cheeks with transient blushes dies,
Heaves her white bosom with seductive sighs;
Or moulds with rosy lips the magic words,
That bind the heart in adamantine cords.

Behind in twilight gloom with scowling mien
The demon Pain, convokes his court unseen;
Whips, fetters, flames, pourtray'd on sculptur'd stone,
In dread festoons, adorn his ebon throne;
Each side a cohort of diseases stands,
And shudd'ring Fever leads the ghastly bands;

O'er all Despair expands his raven wings,
And guilt-stain'd Conscience darts a thousand stings.

Deep-whelm'd beneath, in vast sepulchral caves,
Oblivion dwells amid unlabell'd graves;
The storied tomb, the laurell'd bust o'erturns,
And shakes their ashes from the mould'ring urns.—
No vernal zephyr breathes, no sunbeams cheer,
Nor song, nor simper, ever enters here;
O'er the green floor, and round the dew-damp wall,
The slimy snail, and bloated lizard crawl;
While on white heaps of intermingled bones
The muse of Melancholy sits and moans;
Showers her cold tears o'er Beauty's early wreck,
Spreads her pale arms, and bends her marble neck.

So in rude rocks, beside the Ægean wave,
Trophonius scoop'd his sorrow-sacred cave;

Unbarr'd to pilgrim feet the brazen door,
And the sad sage returning smil'd no more.

Shrin'd in the midst majestic Nature stands,
Extends o'er earth and sea her hundred hands;
Tower upon tower her beamy forehead crests,
And births unnumber'd milk her hundred breasts;
Drawn round her brows a lucid veil depends,
O'er her fine waist the purfled woof descends;
Her stately limbs the gather'd folds surround,
And spread their golden selvage on the ground.

From this first altar fam'd Eleusis stole
Her secret symbols and her mystic scroll;

With pious fraud in after ages rear'd
Her gorgeous temple, and the gods rever'd.
—First in dim pomp before the astonish'd throng,
Silence, and Night, and Chaos, stalk'd along;
Dread scenes of Death, in nodding sables dress'd,
Froze the broad eye, and thrill'd the unbreathing breast.
Then the young Spring, with winged Zephyr, leads
The queen of Beauty to the blossom'd meads;

Charm'd in her train admiring Hymen moves,
And tiptoe Graces hand in hand with Loves.
Next, while on pausing step the masked mimes
Enact the triumphs of forgotten times,
Conceal from vulgar throngs the mystic truth,
Or charm with Wisdom's lore the initiate youth;
Each shifting scene, some patriot hero trod,
Some sainted beauty, or some saviour god.

III.

Now rose in purple pomp the breezy dawn,
And crimson dew-drops trembled on the lawn;
Blaz'd high in air the temple's golden vanes,
And dancing shadows veer'd upon the plains.—
Long trains of virgins from the sacred grove,
Pair after pair, in bright procession move,
With flower-fill'd baskets round the altar throng,
Or swing their censers, as they wind along.
The fair Urania leads the blushing bands,
Presents their offerings with unsullied hands;

Pleas'd to their dazzled eyes in part unshrouds
The goddess-form;—the rest is hid in clouds.

“Priestess of Nature! while with pious awe
Thy votary bends, the mystic veil withdraw;
Charm after charm, succession bright, display,
And give the Goddess to adoring day!
So kneeling realms shall own the Power divine,
And heaven and earth pour incense on her shrine.

“Oh grant the Muse with pausing step to press
Each sun-bright avenue, and green recess;
Led by thy hand survey the trophied walls,
The statued galleries, and the pictur'd halls;

Scan the proud pyramid, and arch sublime,
Earth-canker'd urn, medallion green with time,
Stern busts of Gods, with helmed heroes mix'd,
And Beauty's radiant forms, that smile betwixt.

“Waked by thy voice, transmuted by thy wand,
Their lips shall open, and their arms expand;
The love-lost lady, and the warrior slain,
Leap from their tombs, and sigh or fight again.
—So when ill-fated Orpheus tuned to woe
His potent lyre, and sought the realms below;
Charm'd into life unreal forms respir'd,
And list'ning shades the dulcet notes admir'd.—

“Love led the Sage through Death's tremendous porch,
Cheer'd with his smile, and lighted with his torch;—

Hell's triple Dog his playful jaws expands,
Fawns round the God, and licks his baby hands;
In wondering groups the shadowy nations throng,
And sigh or simper, as he steps along;
Sad swains, and nymphs forlorn, on Lethe's brink,
Hug their past sorrows, and refuse to drink;
Night's dazzled Empress feels the golden flame
Play round her breast, and melt her frozen frame;
Charms with soft words, and sooths with amorous wiles,
Her iron-hearted Lord,—and Pluto smiles.—
His trembling Bride the Bard triumphant led
From the pale mansions of the astonish'd dead;
Gave the fair phantom to admiring light,—
Ah, soon again to tread irremeable night!”

IV.

Her snow-white arm, indulgent to my song,
Waves the fair Hierophant, and moves along.—

High plumes, that bending shade her amber hair,
Nod, as she steps, their silver leaves in air;
Bright chains of pearl, with golden buckles brac'd,
Clasp her white neck, and zone her slender waist;
Thin folds of silk in soft meanders wind
Down her fine form, and undulate behind;
The purple border, on the pavement roll'd,
Swells in the gale, and spreads its fringe of gold.

“First, if you can, celestial Guide! disclose
From what fair fountain mortal life arose,
Whence the fine nerve to move and feel assign'd,
Contractile fibre, and ethereal mind:

“How Love and Sympathy the bosom warm,
Allure with pleasure, and with pain alarm,
With soft affections weave the social plan,
And charm the listening Savage into Man.”

“God the First cause!—in this terrene abode
Young Nature lisps, she is the child of God.
From embryon births her changeful forms improve,
Grow, as they live, and strengthen as they move.

“Ere Time began, from flaming Chaos hurl'd
Rose the bright spheres, which form the circling world;

Earths from each sun with quick explosions burst,
And second planets issued from the first.
Then, whilst the sea at their coeval birth,
Surge over surge, involv'd the shoreless earth;
Nurs'd by warm sun-beams in primeval caves
Organic Life began beneath the waves.

“First Heat from chemic dissolution springs,
And gives to matter its eccentric wings;

With strong Repulsion parts the exploding mass,
Melts into lymph, or kindles into gas.
Attraction next, as earth or air subsides,
The ponderous atoms from the light divides,
Approaching parts with quick embrace combines,
Swells into spheres, and lengthens into lines.
Last, as fine goads the gluten-threads excite,
Cords grapple cords, and webs with webs unite;
And quick Contraction with ethereal flame
Lights into life the fibre-woven frame.—

Hence without parent by spontaneous birth
Rise the first specks of animated earth;
From Nature's womb the plant or insect swims,
And buds or breathes, with microscopic limbs.

“In earth, sea, air, around, below, above,
Life's subtle woof in Nature's loom is wove;

Points glued to points a living line extends,
Touch'd by some goad approach the bending ends;
Rings join to rings, and irritated tubes
Clasp with young lips the nutrient globes or cubes;
And urged by appetencies new select,
Imbibe, retain, digest, secrete, eject.
In branching cones the living web expands,
Lymphatic ducts, and convoluted glands;
Aortal tubes propel the nascent blood,
And lengthening veins absorb the refluent flood;
Leaves, lungs, and gills, the vital ether breathe
On earth's green surface, or the waves beneath.

So Life's first powers arrest the winds and floods,
To bones convert them, or to shells, or woods;
Stretch the vast beds of argil, lime, and sand,
And from diminish'd oceans form the land!

“Next the long nerves unite their silver train,
And young Sensation permeates the brain;
Through each new sense the keen emotions dart,
Flush the young cheek, and swell the throbbing heart.

From pain and pleasure quick Volitions rise,
Lift the strong arm, or point the inquiring eyes;
With Reason's light bewilder'd Man direct,
And right and wrong with balance nice detect.
Last in thick swarms Associations spring,
Thoughts join to thoughts, to motions motions cling;
Whence in long trains of catenation flow
Imagined joy, and voluntary woe.

“So, view'd through crystal spheres in drops saline,
Quick-shooting salts in chemic forms combine;
Or Mucor-stems, a vegetative tribe,
Spread their fine roots, the tremulous wave imbibe.
Next to our wondering eyes the focus brings
Self-moving lines, and animated rings;

First Monas moves, an unconnected point,
Plays round the drop without a limb or joint;
Then Vibrio waves, with capillary eels,
And Vorticella whirls her living wheels;
While insect Proteus sports with changeful form
Through the bright tide, a globe, a cube, a worm.
Last o'er the field the Mite enormous swims,
Swells his red heart, and writhes his giant limbs.

V.

“Organic Life beneath the shoreless waves
Was born and nurs'd in Ocean's pearly caves;

First forms minute, unseen by spheric glass,
Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass;
These, as successive generations bloom,
New powers acquire, and larger limbs assume;
Whence countless groups of vegetation spring,
And breathing realms of fin, and feet, and wing.
“Thus the tall Oak, the giant of the wood,
Which bears Britannia's thunders on the flood;
The Whale, unmeasured monster of the main,
The lordly Lion, monarch of the plain,
The Eagle soaring in the realms of air,
Whose eye undazzled drinks the solar glare,

Imperious man, who rules the bestial crowd,
Of language, reason, and reflection proud,
With brow erect who scorns this earthy sod,
And styles himself the image of his God;
Arose from rudiments of form and sense,
And embryon point, or microscopic ens!
“Now in vast shoals beneath the brineless tide,
On earth's firm crust testaceous tribes reside;
Age after age expands the peopled plain,
The tenants perish, but their cells remain;
Whence coral walls and sparry hills ascend
From pole to pole, and round the line extend.

“Next when imprison'd fires in central caves
Burst the firm earth, and drank the headlong waves;
And, as new airs with dread explosion swell,
Form'd lava-isles, and continents of shell;
Pil'd rocks on rocks, on mountains mountains raised,
And high in heaven the first volcanoes blazed;
In countless swarms an insect-myriad moves
From sea-fan gardens, and from coral groves;

Leaves the cold caverns of the deep, and creeps
On shelving shores, or climbs on rocky steeps.
As in dry air the sea-born stranger roves,
Each muscle quickens, and each sense improves;
Cold gills aquatic form respiring lungs,
And sounds aerial flow from slimy tongues.
“So Trapa rooted in pellucid tides,
In countless threads her breathing leaves divides,

Waves her bright tresses in the watery mass,
And drinks with gelid gills the vital gas;
Then broader leaves in shadowy files advance,
Spread o'er the crystal flood their green expanse;
And, as in air the adherent dew exhales,
Court the warm sun, and breathe ethereal gales.
“So still the Tadpole cleaves the watery vale
With balanc'd fins, and undulating tail;

New lungs and limbs proclaim his second birth,
Breathe the dry air, and bound upon the earth.
So from deep lakes the dread Musquito springs,
Drinks the soft breeze, and dries his tender wings,
In twinkling squadrons cuts his airy way,
Dips his red trunk in blood, and man his prey.
“So still the Diodons, amphibious tribe,
With two-fold lungs the sea or air imbibe;

Allied to fish, the lizard cleaves the flood
With one-cell'd heart, and dark frigescent blood;
Half-reasoning Beavers long-unbreathing dart
Through Erie's waves with perforated heart;
With gills and lungs respiring Lampreys steer,
Kiss the rude rocks, and suck till they adhere;
The lazy Remora's inhaling lips,
Hung on the keel, retard the struggling ships;
With gills pulmonic breathes the enormous Whale,
And spouts aquatic columns to the gale;
Sports on the shining wave at noontide hours,
And shifting rainbows crest the rising showers.
“So erst, ere rose the sience to record
In letter'd syllables the volant word;

Whence chemic arts, disclosed in pictured lines,
Liv'd to mankind by hieroglyphic signs;
And clustering stars, pourtray'd on mimic spheres,
Assumed the forms of lions, bulls, and bears;
—So erst, as Egypt's rude designs explain,
Rose young Dione from the shoreless main;
Type of organic Nature! source of bliss!
Emerging Beauty from the vast abyss!
Sublime on Chaos borne, the Goddess stood,
And smiled enchantment on the troubled flood;

The warring elements to peace restored,
And young Reflection wondered and adored.”
Now paused the Nymph,—The Muse responsive cries,
Sweet admiration sparkling in her eyes,
“Drawn by your pencil, by your hand unfurl'd,
Bright shines the tablet of the dawning world;
Amazed the Sea's prolific depths I view,
And Venus rising from the waves in You!

“Still Nature's births enclosed in egg or seed
From the tall forest to the lowly weed,
Her beaux and beauties, butterflies and worms,
Rise from aquatic to aerial forms.
Thus in the womb the nascent infant laves
Its natant form in the circumfluent waves;
With perforated heart unbreathing swims,
Awakes and stretches all its recent limbs;

With gills placental seeks the arterial flood,
And drinks pure ether from its Mother's blood.
Erewhile the landed Stranger bursts his way,
From the warm wave emerging into day;
Feels the chill blast, and piercing light, and tries
His tender lungs, and rolls his dazzled eyes;
Gives to the passing gale his curling hair,
And steps a dry inhabitant of air.

“Creative Nile, as taught in ancient song,
So charm'd to life his animated throng;
O'er his wide realms the slow-subsiding flood
Left the rich treasures of organic mud;

While with quick growth young Vegetation yields
Her blushing orchards, and her waving fields;
Pomona's hand replenish'd Plenty's horn,
And Ceres laugh'd amid her seas of corn.—
Bird, beast, and reptile, spring from sudden birth,
Raise their new forms, half-animal, half-earth;
The roaring lion shakes his tawny mane,
His struggling limbs still rooted in the plain;
With flapping wings assurgent eagles toil
To rend their talons from the adhesive soil;
The impatient serpent lifts his crested head,
And drags his train unfinish'd from the bed.—
As Warmth and Moisture blend their magic spells,
And brood with mingling wings the slimy dells;

Contractile earths in sentient forms arrange,
And Life triumphant stays their chemic change.”

Then hand in hand along the waving glades
The virgin Sisters pass beneath the shades;
Ascend the winding steps with pausing march,
And seek the Portico's susurrant arch;
Whose sculptur'd architrave on columns borne
Drinks the first blushes of the rising morn,
Whose fretted roof an ample shield displays,
And guards the Beauties from meridian rays.
While on light step enamour'd Zephyr springs,
And fans their glowing features with his wings,
Imbibes the fragrance of the vernal flowers,
And speeds with kisses sweet the dancing Hours.

Urania, leaning with unstudied grace,
Rests her white elbow on a column's base;
Awhile reflecting takes her silent stand,
Her fair cheek press'd upon her lily hand;
Then, as awaking from ideal trance,
On the smooth floor her pausing steps advance,
Waves high her arm, upturns her lucid eyes,
Marks the wide scenes of ocean, earth, and skies;
And leads, meandering as it rolls along
Through Nature's walks, the shining stream of Song.
First her sweet voice in plaintive accents chains
The Muse's ear with fascinating strains;
Reverts awhile to elemental strife,
The change of form, and brevity of life;
Then tells how potent Love with torch sublime
Relights the glimmering lamp, and conquers Time.
—The polish'd walls reflect her rosy smiles,
And sweet-ton'd echoes talk along the ailes.

END OF CANTO I.

CANTO II. REPRODUCTION OF LIFE.

I.

“How short the span of Life! some hours possess'd,
Warm but to cool, and active but to rest!—
The age-worn fibres goaded to contract,
By repetition palsied, cease to act;

When Time's cold hands the languid senses seize,
Chill the dull nerves, the lingering currents freeze;
Organic matter, unreclaim'd by Life,
Reverts to elements by chemic strife.
Thus Heat evolv'd from some fermenting mass
Expands the kindling atoms into gas;
Which sink ere long in cold concentric rings,
Condensed, on Gravity's descending wings.

“But Reproduction with ethereal fires
New Life rekindles, ere the first expires;
Calls up renascent Youth, ere tottering age
Quits the dull scene, and gives him to the stage;
Bids on his cheek the rose of beauty blow,
And binds the wreaths of pleasure round his brow;
With finer links the vital chain extends,
And the long line of Being never ends.

“Self-moving Engines by unbending springs
May walk on earth, or flap their mimic wings;
In tubes of glass mercurial columns rise,
Or sink, obedient to the incumbent skies;
Or, as they touch the figured scale, repeat
The nice gradations of circumfluent heat.
But Reproduction, when the perfect Elf
Forms from fine glands another like itself,
Gives the true character of life and sense,
And parts the organic from the chemic Ens.—
Where milder skies protect the nascent brood,
And earth's warm bosom yields salubrious food;
Each new Descendant with superior powers
Of sense and motion speeds the transient hours;
Braves every season, tenants every clime,
And Nature rises on the wings of Time.

“As Life discordant elements arrests,
Rejects the noxious, and the pure digests;

Combines with Heat the fluctuating mass,
And gives a while solidity to gas;
Organic forms with chemic changes strive,
Live but to die, and die but to revive!
Immortal matter braves the transient storm,
Mounts from the wreck, unchanging but in form.—

“So, as the sages of the East record
In sacred symbol, or unletter'd word;
Emblem of Life, to change eternal doom'd,
The beauteous form of fair Adonis bloom'd.—
On Syrian hills the graceful Hunter slain
Dyed with his gushing blood the shuddering plain;
And, slow-descending to the Elysian shade,
A while with Proserpine reluctant stray'd;
Soon from the yawning grave the bursting clay
Restor'd the Beauty to delighted day;
Array'd in youth's resuscitated charms,
And young Dione woo'd him to her arms.—

Pleased for a while the assurgent youth above
Relights the golden lamp of life and love;
Ah, soon again to leave the cheerful light,
And sink alternate to the realms of night.

II.

“Hence ere Vitality, as time revolves,
Leaves the cold organ, and the mass dissolves;
The Reproductions of the living Ens
From sires to sons, unknown to sex, commence.
New buds and bulbs the living fibre shoots
On lengthening branches, and protruding roots;
Or on the father's side from bursting glands
The adhering young its nascent form expands;
In branching lines the parent-trunk adorns,
And parts ere long like plumage, hairs, or horns.

“So the lone Truffle, lodged beneath the earth,
Shoots from paternal roots the tuberous birth;

No stamen-males ascend, and breathe above,
No seed-born offspring lives by female love.
From each young tree, for future buds design'd
Organic drops exsude beneath the rind;
While these with appetencies nice invite,
And those with apt propensities unite;
New embryon fibrils round the trunk combine
With quick embrace, and form the living line:
Whose plume and rootlet at their early birth
Seek the dry air, or pierce the humid earth.

“So safe in waves prolific Volvox dwells,
And five descendants crowd his lucid cells;
So the male Polypus parental swims,
And branching infants bristle all his limbs;

So the lone Tænia, as he grows, prolongs
His flatten'd form with young adherent throngs;
Unknown to sex the pregnant oyster swells,
And coral-insects build their radiate shells;

Parturient Sires caress their infant train,
And heaven-born Storge weaves the social chain;
Successive births her tender cares combine,
And soft affections live along the line.

“On angel-wings the Goddess Form descends,
Round her fond broods her silver arms she bends;
White streams of milk her tumid bosom swell,
And on her lips ambrosial kisses dwell.
Light joys on twinkling feet before her dance
With playful nod, and momentary glance;
Behind, attendant on the pansied plain,
Young Psyche treads with Cupid in her train.

III.

“In these lone births no tender mothers blend
Their genial powers to nourish or defend;

No nutrient streams from Beauty's orbs improve
These orphan babes of solitary love;
Birth after birth the line unchanging runs,
And fathers live transmitted in their sons;
Each passing year beholds the unvarying kinds,
The same their manners, and the same their minds.
Till, as erelong successive buds decay,
And insect-shoals successive pass away,
Increasing wants the pregnant parents vex
With the fond wish to form a softer sex;
Whose milky rills with pure ambrosial food
Might charm and cherish their expected brood.

The potent wish in the productive hour
Calls to its aid Imagination's power,
O'er embryon throngs with mystic charm presides,
And sex from sex the nascent world divides,
With soft affections warms the callow trains,
And gives to laughing Love his nymphs and swains;

Whose mingling virtues interweave at length
The mother's beauty with the father's strength.

“So tulip-bulbs emerging from the seed,
Year after year unknown to sex proceed;
Erewhile the stamens and the styles display
Their petal-curtains, and adorn the day;
The beaux and beauties in each blossom glow
With wedded joy, or amatorial woe.

Unmarried Aphides prolific prove
For nine successions uninform'd of love;
New sexes next with softer passions spring,
Breathe the fond vow, and woo with quivering wing.

“So erst in Paradise creation's Lord,
As the first leaves of holy writ record,
From Adam's rib, who press'd the flowery grove,
And dreamt delighted of untasted love,
To cheer and charm his solitary mind,
Form'd a new sex, the Mother of Mankind.
—Buoy'd on light step the Beauty seem'd to swim,
And stretch'd alternate every pliant limb;
Pleased on Euphrates' velvet margin stood,
And view'd her playful image in the flood;
Own'd the fine flame of love, as life began,
And smiled enchantment on adoring Man.
Down her white neck and o'er her bosom roll'd,
Flow'd in sweet negligence her locks of gold;

Round her fine form the dim transparence play'd,
And show'd the beauties, that it seem'd to shade.
—Enamour'd Adam gaz'd with fond surprise,
And drank delicious passion from her eyes;
Felt the new thrill of young Desire, and press'd
The graceful Virgin to his glowing breast.—
The conscious Fair betrays her soft alarms,
Sinks with warm blush into his closing arms,
Yields to his fond caress with wanton play,
And sweet, reluctant, amorous, delay.

IV.

“Where no new Sex with glands nutritious feeds,
Nurs'd in her womb, the solitary breeds;
No Mother's care their early steps directs,
Warms in her bosom, with her wings protects;
The clime unkind, or noxious food instills
To embryon nerves hereditary ills;
The feeble births acquired diseases chase,
Till Death extinguish the degenerate race.

“So grafted trees with shadowy summits rise,
Spread their fair blossoms, and perfume the skies;
Till canker taints the vegetable blood,
Mines round the bark, and feeds upon the wood.
So, years successive, from perennial roots
The wire or bulb with lessen'd vigour shoots;
Till curled leaves, or barren flowers, betray
A waning lineage, verging to decay;
Or till, amended by connubial powers,
Rise seedling progenies from sexual flowers.

“E'en where unmix'd the breed, in sexual tribes
Parental taints the nascent babe imbibes;
Eternal war the Gout and Mania wage
With fierce uncheck'd hereditary rage;

Sad Beauty's form foul Scrofula surrounds
With bones distorted, and putrescent wounds;
And, fell Consumption! thy unerring dart
Wets its broad wing in Youth's reluctant heart.

“With pausing step, at night's refulgent noon,
Beneath the sparkling stars, and lucid moon,
Plung'd in the shade of some religious tower,
The slow bell counting the departed hour,
O'er gaping tombs where shed umbrageous Yews
On mouldering bones their cold unwholesome dews;
While low aerial voices whisper round,
And moondrawn spectres dance upon the ground;
Poetic Melancholy loves to tread,
And bend in silence o'er the countless Dead;
Marks with loud sobs infantine Sorrows rave,
And wring their pale hands o'er their Mother's grave;

Hears on the new-turn'd sod with gestures wild
The kneeling Beauty call her buried child;
Upbraid with timorous accents Heaven's decrees,
And with sad sighs augment the passing breeze.
‘Stern Time,’ She cries, ‘receives from Nature's womb
Her beauteous births, and bears them to the tomb;
Calls all her sons from earth's remotest bourn,
And from the closing portals none return!’

V.

Urania paused,—upturn'd her streaming eyes,
And her white bosom heaved with silent sighs;
With her the Muse laments the sum of things,
And hides her sorrows with her meeting wings;
Long o'er the wrecks of lovely Life they weep,
Then pleased reflect, “to die is but to sleep;”
From Nature's coffins to her cradles turn,
Smile with young joy, with new affection burn.

And now the Muse, with mortal woes impress'd,
Thus the fair Hierophant again address'd.

—“Ah me! celestial Guide, thy words impart
Ills undeserved, that rend the nascent heart!
O, Goddess, say, if brighter scenes improve
Air-breathing tribes, and births of sexual love?”—
The smiling Fair obeys the inquiring Muse,
And in sweet tones her grateful task pursues.

“Now on broad pinions from the realms above
Descending Cupid seeks the Cyprian grove;
To his wide arms enamour'd Psyche springs,
And clasps her lover with aurelian wings.
A purple sash across His shoulder bends,
And fringed with gold the quiver'd shafts suspends;
The bending bow obeys the silken string,
And, as he steps, the silver arrows ring.

Thin folds of gauze with dim transparence flow
O'er Her fair forehead, and her neck of snow;
The winding woof her graceful limbs surrounds,
Swells in the breeze, and sweeps the velvet grounds;
As hand in hand along the flowery meads
His blushing bride the quiver'd hero leads;
Charm'd round their heads pursuing Zephyrs throng,
And scatter roses, as they move along;
Bright beams of Spring in soft effusion play,
And halcyon Hours invite them on their way.

“Delighted Hymen hears their whisper'd vows,
And binds his chaplets round their polish'd brows,
Guides to his altar, ties the flowery bands,
And as they kneel, unites their willing hands.
‘Behold, he cries, Earth! Ocean! Air above,
‘And hail the Deities of Sexual Love!
‘All forms of Life shall this fond Pair delight,
‘And sex to sex the willing world unite;

‘Shed their sweet smiles in Earth's unsocial bowers,
‘Fan with soft gales, and gild with brighter hours;
‘Fill Pleasure's chalice unalloy'd with pain,
‘And give Society his golden chain.’

“Now young Desires, on purple pinions borne,
Mount the warm gales of Manhood's rising morn;
With softer fires through virgin bosoms dart,
Flush the pale cheek, and goad the tender heart.
Ere the weak powers of transient Life decay,
And Heaven's ethereal image melts away;
Love with nice touch renews the organic frame,
Forms a young Ens, another and the same;
Gives from his rosy lips the vital breath,
And parries with his hand the shafts of death;
While Beauty broods with angel wings unfurl'd
O'er nascent life, and saves the sinking world.

“Hence on green leaves the sexual Pleasures dwell,
And Loves and Beauties crowd the blossom's bell;
The wakeful Anther in his silken bed
O'er the pleased Stigma bows his waxen head;
With meeting lips and mingling smiles they sup
Ambrosial dewdrops from the nectar'd cup;
Or buoy'd in air the plumy Lover springs,
And seeks his panting bride on Hymen-wings.

“The Stamen males, with appetencies just,
Produce a formative prolific dust;
With apt propensities, the Styles recluse
Secrete a formative prolific juice;
These in the pericarp erewhile arrive,
Rush to each other, and embrace alive.
—Form'd by new powers progressive parts succeed,
Join in one whole, and swell into a seed.

“So in fond swarms the living Anthers shine
Of bright Vallisner on the wavy Rhine;

Break from their stems, and on the liquid glass
Surround the admiring stigmas as they pass;
The love-sick Beauties lift their essenced brows,
Sigh to the Cyprian queen their secret vows,
Like watchful Hero feel their soft alarms,
And clasp their floating lovers in their arms.

“Hence the male Ants their gauzy wings unfold,
And young Lampyris waves his plumes of gold;
The Glow-Worm sparkles with impassion'd light
On each green bank, and charms the eye of night;
While new desires the painted Snail perplex,
And twofold love unites the double sex.

“Hence, when the Morus in Italia's lands
To spring's warm beam its timid leaf expands;
The Silk-Worm broods in countless tribes above
Crop the green treasure, uninform'd of love;
Erewhile the changeful worm with circling head
Weaves the nice curtains of his silken bed;
Web within web involves his larva form,
Alike secured from sunshine and from storm;
For twelve long days He dreams of blossom'd groves,
Untasted honey, and ideal loves;

Wakes from his trance, alarm'd with young Desire,
Finds his new sex, and feels ecstatic fire;
From flower to flower with honey'd lip he springs,
And seeks his velvet loves on silver wings.

VI.

“The Demon, Jealousy, with Gorgon frown
Blasts the sweet flowers of Pleasure not his own,
Rolls his wild eyes, and through the shuddering grove
Pursues the steps of unsuspecting Love;
Or drives o'er rattling plains his iron car,
Flings his red torch, and lights the flames of war.

Here Cocks heroic burn with rival rage,
And Quails with Quails in doubtful fight engage;
Of armed heels and bristling plumage proud,
They sound the insulting clarion shrill and loud,

With rustling pinions meet, and swelling chests,
And seize with closing beaks their bleeding crests;
Rise on quick wing above the struggling foe,
And aim in air the death-devoting blow.
There the hoarse stag his croaking rival scorns,
And butts and parries with his branching horns;
Contending Boars with tusk enamell'd strike,
And guard with shoulder-shield the blow oblique;

While female bands attend in mute surprise,
And view the victor with admiring eyes.—

“So Knight on Knight, recorded in romance,
Urged the proud steed, and couch'd the extended lance;
He, whose dread prowess with resistless force,
O'erthrew the opposing warrior and his horse,
Bless'd, as the golden guerdon of his toils,
Bow'd to the Beauty, and receiv'd her smiles.

“So when fair Helen with ill-fated charms,
By Paris wooed, provoked the world to arms,
Left her vindictive Lord to sigh in vain
For broken vows, lost love, and cold disdain;
Fired at his wrongs, associate to destroy
The realms unjust of proud adulterous Troy,
Unnumber'd Heroes braved the dubious fight,
And sunk lamented to the shades of night.

“Now vows connubial chain the plighted pair,
And join paternal with maternal care;
The married birds with nice selection cull
Soft thistle-down, gray moss, and scattered wool,
Line the secluded nest with feathery rings,
Meet with fond bills, and woo with fluttering wings.
Week after week, regardless of her food,
The incumbent Linnet warms her future brood;
Each spotted egg with ivory lips she turns,
Day after day with fond expectance burns,
Hears the young prisoner chirping in his cell,
And breaks in hemispheres the obdurate shell.

Loud trills sweet Philomel his tender strain,
Charms his fond bride, and wakes his infant train;
Perch'd on the circling moss, the listening throng
Wave their young wings, and whisper to the song.

“The Lion-King forgets his savage pride,
And courts with playful paws his tawny bride;
The listening Tiger hears with kindling flame
The love-lorn night-call of his brinded dame.
Despotic Love dissolves the bestial war,
Bends their proud necks, and joins them to his car;

Shakes o'er the obedient pairs his silken thong,
And goads the humble, or restrains the strong.—
Slow roll the silver wheels,—in beauty's pride
Celestial Psyche blushing by his side.—
The lordly Bull behind and warrior Horse
With voice of thunder shake the echoing course,
Chain'd to the car with herds domestic move,
And swell the triumph of despotic Love.

“Pleased as they pass along the breezy shore
In twinkling shoals the scaly realms adore,
Move on quick fin with undulating train,
Or lift their slimy foreheads from the main.

High o'er their heads on pinions broad display'd
The feather'd nations shed a floating shade;

Pair after pair enamour'd shoot along,
And trill in air the gay impassion'd song.
With busy hum in playful swarms around
Emerging insects leave the peopled ground,
Rise in dark clouds, and borne in airy rings
Sport round the car, and wave their golden wings.
Admiring Fawns pursue on dancing hoof,
And bashful Dryads peep from shades aloof;
Emerging Nereids rise from coral cells,
Enamour'd Tritons sound their twisted shells;
From sparkling founts enchanted Naiads move,
And swell the triumph of despotic Love.

“Delighted Flora, gazing from afar,
Greets with mute homage the triumphal car;
On silvery slippers steps with bosom bare,
Bends her white knee, and bows her auburn hair;
Calls to her purple heaths, and blushing bowers,
Bursts her green gems, and opens all her flowers;

O'er the bright Pair a shower of roses sheds,
And crowns with wreathes of hyacinth their heads.—
—Slow roll the silver wheels with snowdrops deck'd,
And primrose bands the cedar spokes connect;
Round the fine pole the twisting woodbine clings,
And knots of jasmine clasp the bending springs;
Bright daisy links the velvet harness chain,
And rings of violets join each silken rein;
Festoon'd behind, the snow-white lilies bend,
And tulip-tassels on each side depend.
—Slow rolls the car,—the enamour'd Flowers exhale
Their treasured sweets, and whisper to the gale;
Their ravelled buds, and wrinkled cups unfold,
Nod their green stems, and wave their bells of gold;
Breathe their soft sighs from each enchanted grove,
And hail The Deities of Sexual Love.

“Onward with march sublime in saffron robe
Young Hymen steps, and traverses the globe;

O'er burning sands, and snow-clad mountains, treads,
Blue fields of air, and ocean's briny beds;
Flings from his radiant torch celestial light
O'er Day's wide concave, and illumes the Night.
With dulcet eloquence his tuneful tongue
Convokes and captivates the Fair and Young;
His golden lamp with ray ethereal dyes
The blushing cheek, and lights the laughing eyes;
With secret flames the virgin's bosom warms,
And lights the impatient bridegroom to her arms;
With lovely life all Nature's frame inspires,
And, as they sink, rekindles all her fires.”

VII.

Now paused the beauteous Teacher, and awhile
Gazed on her train with sympathetic smile.
‘Beware of Love! she cried, ye Nymphs, and hear
‘His twanging bowstring with alarmed ear;
‘Fly the first whisper of the distant dart,
‘Or shield with adamant the fluttering heart;

‘To secret shades, ye Virgin trains, retire,
‘And in your bosoms guard the vestal fire.”
—The obedient Beauties hear her words, advised,
And bow with laugh repress'd, and smile chastised.

Now at her nod the Nymphs attendant bring
Translucent water from the bubbling spring;

In crystal cups the waves salubrious shine,
Unstain'd untainted with immodest wine.
Next, where emerging from its ancient roots
Its widening boughs the Tree of Knowledge shoots;
Pluck'd with nice choice before the Muse they placed
The now no longer interdicted taste.
Awhile they sit, from higher cares released,
And pleased partake the intellectual feast.
Of good and ill they spoke, effect and cause,
Celestial agencies, and Nature's laws.

So when angelic Forms to Syria sent
Sat in the cedar shade by Abraham's tent;
A spacious bowl the admiring Patriarch fills
With dulcet water from the scanty rills;
Sweet fruits and kernels gathers from his hoard,
With milk and butter piles the plenteous board;
While on the heated hearth his Consort bakes
Fine flour well kneaded in unleaven'd cakes.

The Guests ethereal quaff the lucid flood,
Smile on their hosts, and taste terrestrial food;
And while from seraph-lips sweet converse springs,
Lave their fair feet, and close their silver wings.

END OF CANTO II.

CANTO III. PROGRESS OF THE MIND.

I.

Now rose, adorn'd with Beauty's brightest hues,
The graceful Hierophant, and winged Muse;
Onward they step around the stately piles,
O'er porcelain floors, through laqueated ailes,
Eye Nature's lofty and her lowly seats,
Her gorgeous palaces, and green retreats,
Pervade her labyrinths with unerring tread,
And leave for future guests a guiding thread.

First with fond gaze blue fields of air they sweep,
Or pierce the briny chambers of the deep;
Earth's burning line, and icy poles explore,
Her fertile surface, and her caves of ore;

Or mark how Oxygen with Azote-Gas
Plays round the globe in one aerial mass,
Or fused with Hydrogen in ceaseless flow
Forms the wide waves, which foam and roll below.

Next with illumined hands through prisms bright
Pleased they untwist the sevenfold threads of light;
Or, bent in pencils by the lens, convey
To one bright point the silver hairs of Day.
Then mark how two electric streams conspire
To form the resinous and vitreous fire;

Beneath the waves the fierce Gymnotus arm,
And give Torpedo his benumbing charm;
Or, through Galvanic chain-work as they pass,
Convert the kindling water into gas.

How at the poles opposing Ethers dwell,
Attract the quivering needle, or repel.
How Gravitation by immortal laws
Surrounding matter to a centre draws;
How Heat, pervading oceans, airs, and lands,
With force uncheck'd the mighty mass expands;
And last how born in elemental strife
Beam'd the first spark, and lighten'd into Life.

Now in sweet tones the inquiring Muse express'd
Her ardent wish; and thus the Fair address'd.
“Priestess of Nature! whose exploring sight
Pierces the realms of Chaos and of Night;
Of space unmeasured marks the first and last,
Of endless time the present, future, past;
Immortal Guide! O, now with accents kind
Give to my ear the progress of the Mind.
How loves, and tastes, and sympathies commence
From evanescent notices of sense?
How from the yielding touch and rolling eyes
The piles immense of human science rise?—
With mind gigantic steps the puny Elf,
And weighs and measures all things but himself!”

The indulgent Beauty hears the grateful Muse,
Smiles on her pupil, and her task renews.
Attentive Nymphs in sparkling squadrons throng,
And choral Virgins listen to the song;

Pleased Fawns and Naiads crowd in silent rings,
And hovering Cupids stretch their purple wings.

II.

“First the new actions of the excited sense,
Urged by appulses from without, commence;
With these exertions pain or pleasure springs,
And forms perceptions of external things.
Thus, when illumined by the solar beams,
Yon waving woods, green lawns, and sparkling streams,
In one bright point by rays converging lie
Plann'd on the moving tablet of the eye;
The mind obeys the silver goads of light,
And Irritation moves the nerves of sight.

“These acts repeated rise from joys or pains,
And swell Imagination's flowing trains;
So in dread dreams amid the silent night
Grim spectre-forms the shuddering sense affright;
Or Beauty's idol-image, as it moves,
Charms the closed eye with graces, smiles, and loves;
Each passing form the pausing heart delights,
And young Sensation every nerve excites.

“Oft from sensation quick Volition springs,
When pleasure thrills us, or when anguish stings;

Hence Recollection calls with voice sublime
Immersed ideas from the wrecks of Time,
With potent charm in lucid trains displays
Eventful stories of forgotten days.
Hence Reason's efforts good with ill contrast,
Compare the present, future, and the past;
Each passing moment, unobserved restrain
The wild discordancies of Fancy's train;
But leave uncheck'd the Night's ideal streams,
Or, sacred Muses! your meridian dreams.

“And last Suggestion's mystic power describes
Ideal hosts arranged in trains or tribes.
So when the Nymph with volant finger rings
Her dulcet harp, and shakes the sounding strings;
As with soft voice she trills the enamour'd song,
Successive notes, unwill'd, the strain prolong;
The transient trains Association steers,
And sweet vibrations charm the astonish'd ears.

“On rapid feet o'er hills, and plains, and rocks,
Speed the scared leveret and rapacious fox;
On rapid pinions cleave the fields above
The hawk descending, and escaping dove;
With nicer nostril track the tainted ground
The hungry vulture, and the prowling hound;

Converge reflected light with nicer eye
The midnight owl, and microscopic fly;
With finer ear pursue their nightly course
The listening lion, and the alarmed horse.

“The branching forehead with diverging horns
Crests the bold bull, the jealous stag adorns;
Fierce rival boars with side-long fury wield
The pointed tusk, and guard with shoulder-shield;
Bounds the dread tiger o'er the affrighted heath
Arm'd with sharp talons, and resistless teeth;
The pouncing eagle bears in clinched claws
The struggling lamb, and rends with ivory jaws;
The tropic eel, electric in his ire,
Alarms the waves with unextinguish'd fire;

The fly of night illumes his airy way,
And seeks with lucid lamp his sleeping prey;
Fierce on his foe the poisoning serpent springs,
And insect armies dart their venom'd stings.

“Proud Man alone in wailing weakness born,
No horns protect him, and no plumes adorn;
No finer powers of nostril, ear, or eye,
Teach the young Reasoner to pursue or fly.—
Nerved with fine touch above the bestial throngs,
The hand, first gift of Heaven! to man belongs;

Untipt with claws the circling fingers close,
With rival points the bending thumbs oppose,
Trace the nice lines of Form with sense refined,
And clear ideas charm the thinking mind.
Whence the fine organs of the touch impart
Ideal figure, source of every art;
Time, motion, number, sunshine or the storm,
But mark varieties in Nature's form.

“Slow could the tangent organ wander o'er
The rock-built mountain, and the winding shore;
No apt ideas could the pigmy mite,
Or embryon emmet to the touch excite;
But as each mass the solar ray reflects,
The eye's clear glass the transient beams collects;
Bends to their focal point the rays that swerve,
And paints the living image on the nerve.
So in some village-barn, or festive hall
The spheric lens illumes the whiten'd wall;
O'er the bright field successive figures fleet,
And motley shadows dance along the sheet.—
Symbol of solid forms is colour'd light,
And the mute language of the touch is sight.

“Hence in Life's portico starts young Surprise
With step retreating, and expanded eyes;

The virgin, Novelty, whose radiant train
Soars o'er the clouds, or sinks beneath the main,
With sweetly-mutable seductive charms
Thrills the young sense, the tender heart alarms.
Then Curiosity with tracing hands
And meeting lips the lines of form demands,
Buoy'd on light step, o'er ocean, earth, and sky,
Rolls the bright mirror of her restless eye.
While in wild groups tumultuous Passions stand,
And Lust and Hunger head the Motley band;
Then Love and Rage succeed, and Hope and Fear;
And nameless Vices close the gloomy rear;
Or young Philanthropy with voice divine
Convokes the adoring Youth to Virtue's shrine;

Who with raised eye and pointing finger leads
To truths celestial, and immortal deeds.

III.

“As the pure language of the Sight commands
The clear ideas furnish'd by the hands;
Beauty's fine forms attract our wondering eyes,
And soft alarms the pausing heart surprise.
Warm from its cell the tender infant born
Feels the cold chill of Life's aerial morn;
Seeks with spread hands the bosoms velvet orbs,
With closing lips the milky fount absorbs;
And, as compress'd the dulcet streams distil,
Drinks warmth and fragrance from the living rill;
Eyes with mute rapture every waving line,
Prints with adoring kiss the Paphian shrine,
And learns erelong, the perfect form confess'd,
Ideal Beauty from its Mother's breast.

“Now on swift wheels descending like a star
Alights young Eros from his radiant car;
On angel-wings attendant Graces move,
And hail the God of Sentimental Love.

Earth at his feet extends her flowery bed,
And bends her silver blossoms round his head;
Dark clouds dissolve, the warring winds subside,
And smiling ocean calms his tossing tide,
O'er the bright morn meridian lustres play,
And Heaven salutes him with a flood of day.

“Warm as the sun-beam, pure as driven snows,
The enamour'd God for young Dione glows;
Drops the still tear, with sweet attention sighs,
And woos the Goddess with adoring eyes;
Marks her white neck beneath the gauze's fold,
Her ivory shoulders, and her locks of gold;
Drinks with mute ecstacy the transient glow,
Which warms and tints her bosom's rising snow.
With holy kisses wanders o'er her charms,
And clasps the Beauty in Platonic arms;

100

Or if the dewy hands of Sleep, unbid,
O'er her blue eye-balls close the lovely lid,
Watches each nascent smile, and fleeting grace,
That plays in day-dreams o'er her blushing face;
Counts the fine mazes of the curls, that break
Round her fair ear, and shade her damask cheek;
Drinks the pure fragrance of her breath, and sips
With tenderest touch the roses of her lips;—
O'er female hearts with chaste seduction reigns,
And binds Society in silken chains.

IV.

“If the wide eye the wavy lawns explores,
The bending woodlands, or the winding shores,

101

Hills, whose green sides with soft protuberance rise,
Or the blue concave of the vaulted skies;—
Or scans with nicer gaze the pearly swell
Of spiral volutes round the twisted shell;
Or undulating sweep, whose graceful turns
Bound the smooth surface of Etrurian urns,
When on fine forms the waving lines impress'd
Give the nice curves, which swell the female breast;
The countless joys the tender Mother pours
Round the soft cradle of our infant hours,
In lively trains of unextinct delight
Rise in our bosoms recognized by sight;

102

Fond Fancy's eye recalls the form divine,
And Taste sits smiling upon Beauty's shrine.

“Where Egypt's pyramids gigantic stand,
And stretch their shadows o'er the shuddering sand;
Or where high rocks o'er ocean's dashing floods
Wave high in air their panoply of woods;
Admiring Taste delights to stray beneath
With eye uplifted, and forgets to breathe;
Or, as aloft his daring footsteps climb,
Crests their high summits with his arm sublime.

103

“Where mouldering columns mark the lingering wreck
Of Thebes, Palmyra, Babylon, Balbec;
The prostrate obelisk, or shatter'd dome,
Uprooted pedestal, and yawning tomb,
On loitering steps reflective Taste surveys
With folded arms and sympathetic gaze;
Charm'd with poetic Melancholy treads
O'er ruin'd towns and desolated meads;
Or rides sublime on Time's expanded wings,
And views the fate of ever-changing things.

“When Beauty's streaming eyes her woes express,
Or Virtue braves unmerited distress;

104

Love sighs in sympathy, with pain combined,
And new-born Pity charms the kindred mind;
The enamour'd Sorrow every cheek bedews,
And Taste impassion'd woos the tragic Muse.

“The rush-thatch'd cottage on the purple moor,
Where ruddy children frolic round the door,
The moss-grown antlers of the aged oak,
The shaggy locks that fringe the colt unbroke,

105

The bearded goat with nimble eyes, that glare
Through the long tissue of his hoary hair;—
As with quick foot he climbs some ruin'd wall,
And crops the ivy, which prevents its fall;—
With rural charms the tranquil mind delight,
And form a picture to the admiring sight.
While Taste with pleasure bends his eye surprised
In modern days at Nature unchastised.

“The Genius-Form, on silver slippers born,
With fairer dew-drops gems the rising morn;
Sheds o'er meridian skies a softer light,
And decks with brighter pearls the brow of night;

106

With finer blush the vernal blossom glows,
With sweeter breath enamour'd Zephyr blows,
The limpid streams with gentler murmurs pass,
And gayer colours tinge the watery glass,
Charm'd round his steps along the enchanted groves
Flit the fine forms of Beauties, Graces, Loves.

V.

“Alive, each moment of the transient hour,
When Rest accumulates sensorial power,

107

The impatient Senses, goaded to contract,
Forge new ideas, changing as they act;
And, in long streams dissever'd, or concrete
In countless tribes, the fleeting forms repeat.
Which rise excited in Volition's trains,
Or link the sparkling rings of Fancy's chains;
Or, as they flow from each translucent source,
Pursue Association's endless course.

“Hence when the inquiring hands with contact fine
Trace on hard forms the circumscribing line;
Which then the language of the rolling eyes
From distant scenes of earth and heaven supplies;
Those clear ideas of the touch and sight
Rouse the quick sense to anguish or delight;
Whence the fine power of Imitation springs,
And apes the outlines of external things;
With ceaseless action to the world imparts
All moral virtues, languages, and arts.

108

First the charm'd Mind mechanic powers collects,
Means for some end, and causes of effects;
Then learns from other Minds their joys and fears,
Contagious smiles and sympathetic tears.

“What one fine stimulated Sense discerns,
Another Sense by Imitation learns.—
So in the graceful dance the step sublime
Learns from the ear the concordance of Time.
So, when the pen of some young artist prints
Recumbent Nymphs in Titian's living tints;
The glowing limb, fair cheek, and flowing hair,
Respiring bosom, and seductive air,

109

He justly copies with enamour'd sigh
From Beauty's image pictured on his eye.

“Thus when great Angelo in wondering Rome
Fix'd the vast pillars of Saint Peter's dome,
Rear'd rocks on rocks sublime, and hung on high
A new Pantheon in the affrighted sky.
Each massy pier, now join'd and now aloof,
The figured architraves, and vaulted roof,

110

Ailes, whose broad curves gigantic ribs sustain,
Where holy echoes chant the adoring strain;
The central altar, sacred to the Lord,
Admired by Sages, and by Saints ador'd,
Whose brazen canopy ascends sublime
On spiral columns unafraid of Time,
Were first by Fancy in ethereal dyes
Plann'd on the rolling tablets of his eyes;
And his true hand with imitation fine
Traced from his Retina the grand design.

“The Muse of Mimicry in every age
With silent language charms the attentive stage;

111

The Monarch's stately step, and tragic pause,
The Hero bleeding in his country's cause,
O'er her fond child the dying Mother's tears,
The Lover's ardor, and the Virgin's fears;
The tittering Nymph, that tries her comic task,
Bounds on the scene, and peeps behind her mask,
The Punch and Harlequin, and graver throng,
That shake the theatre with dance and song,
With endless trains of Angers, Loves, and Mirths,
Owe to the Muse of Mimicry their births.

“Hence to clear images of form belong
The sculptor's statue, and the poet's song,
The painter's landscape, and the builder's plan,
And Imitation marks the mind of Man.

112

VI.

“When strong desires or soft sensations move
The astonish'd Intellect to rage or love;
Associate tribes of fibrous motions rise,
Flush the red cheek, or light the laughing eyes.
Whence ever-active Imitation finds
The ideal trains, that pass in kindred minds;
Her mimic arts associate thoughts excite
And the first Language enters at the sight.

113

“Thus jealous quails or village-cocks inspect
Each other's necks with stiffen'd plumes erect;
Smit with the wordless eloquence, they know
The rival passion of the threatening foe.
So when the famish'd wolves at midnight howl,
Fell serpents hiss, or fierce hyenas growl;
Indignant Lions rear their bristling mail,
And lash their sides with undulating tail.
Or when the Savage-Man with clenched fist
Parades, the scowling champion of the list;
With brandish'd arms, and eyes that roll to know
Where first to fix the meditated blow;
Association's mystic power combines
Internal passions with external signs.

“From these dumb gestures first the exchange began
Of viewless thought in bird, and beast, and man;
And still the stage by mimic art displays
Historic pantomime in modern days;

114

And hence the enthusiast orator affords
Force to the feebler eloquence of words.

“Thus the first Language, when we frown'd or smiled,
Rose from the cradle, Imitation's child;
Next to each thought associate sound accords,
And forms the dulcet symphony of words;
The tongue, the lips articulate; the throat
With soft vibration modulates the note;
Love, pity, war, the shout, the song, the prayer
Form quick concussions of elastic air.

“Hence the first accents bear in airy rings
The vocal symbols of ideal things,

115

Name each nice change appulsive powers supply
To the quick sense of touch, or ear or eye.
Or in fine traits abstracted forms suggest
Of Beauty, Wisdom, Number, Motion, Rest;
Or, as within reflex ideas move,
Trace the light steps of Reason, Rage, or Love.
The next new sounds adjunctive thoughts recite,
As hard, odorous, tuneful, sweet, or white.

116

The next the fleeting images select
Of action, suffering, causes and effect;
Or mark existence, with the march sublime
O'er earth and ocean of recording Time.

“The Giant Form on Nature's centre stands,
And waves in ether his unnumber'd hands;
Whirls the bright planets in their silver spheres,
And the vast sun round other systems steers;
Till the last trump amid the thunder's roar
Sound the dread Sentence “Time shall be no more!”

“Last steps Abbreviation, bold and strong,
And leads the volant trains of words along;
With sweet loquacity to Hermes springs,
And decks his forehead and his feet with wings.

VII.

“As the soft lips and pliant tongue are taught
With other minds to interchange the thought;

117

And sound, the symbol of the sense, explains
In parted links the long ideal trains;
From clear conceptions of external things
The facile power of Recollection springs.

“Whence Reason's empire o'er the world presides,
And man from brute, and man from man divides;

118

Compares and measures by imagined lines
Ellipses, circles, tangents, angles, sines;
Repeats with nice libration, and decrees
In what each differs, and in what agrees;
With quick Volitions unfatigued selects
Means for some end, and causes of effects;
All human science worth the name imparts,
And builds on Nature's base the works of Arts.

“The Wasp, fine architect, surrounds his domes
With paper-foliage, and suspends his combs;

119

Secured from frost the Bee industrious dwells,
And fills for winter all her waxen cells;
The cunning Spider with adhesive line
Weaves his firm net immeasurably fine;
The Wren, when embryon eggs her cares engross,
Seeks the soft down, and lines the cradling moss;
Conscious of change the Silkworm-Nymphs begin
Attach'd to leaves their gluten-threads to spin;
Then round and round they weave with circling heads
Sphere within Sphere, and form their silken beds.
—Say, did these fine volitions first commence
From clear ideas of the tangent sense;
From sires to sons by imitation caught,
Or in dumb language by tradition taught?
Or did they rise in some primeval site
Of larva-gnat, or microscopic mite;

120

And with instructive foresight still await
On each vicissitude of insect-state?—
Wise to the present, nor to future blind,
They link the reasoning reptile to mankind!
—Stoop, selfish Pride! survey thy kindred forms,
Thy brother Emmets, and thy sister Worms!

“Thy potent acts, Volition, still attend
The means of pleasure to secure the end;

121

To express his wishes and his wants design'd
Language, the means, distinguishes Mankind;
For future works in Art's ingenious schools
His hands unwearied form and finish tools;
He toils for money future bliss to share,
And shouts to Heaven his mercenary prayer.
Sweet Hope delights him, frowning Fear alarms,
And Vice and Virtue court him to their arms.

“Unenvied eminence, in Nature's plan
Rise the reflective faculties of Man!
Labour to Rest the thinking Few prefer!
Know but to mourn! and reason but to err!—
In Eden's groves, the cradle of the world,
Bloom'd a fair tree with mystic flowers unfurl'd;
On bending branches, as aloft it sprung,
Forbid to taste, the fruit of Knowledge hung;
Flow'd with sweet Innocence the tranquil hours,
And Love and Beauty warm'd the blissful bowers.

122

Till our deluded Parents pluck'd, erelong,
The tempting fruit, and gather'd Right and Wrong;
Whence Good and Evil, as in trains they pass,
Reflection imaged on her polish'd glass;
And Conscience felt, for blood by Hunger spilt,
The pains of shame, of sympathy, and guilt!

VIII.

“Last, as observant Imitation stands,
Turns her quick glance, and brandishes her hands,
With mimic acts associate thoughts excites,
And storms the soul with sorrows or delights;
Life's shadowy scenes are brighten'd and refin'd,
And soft emotions mark the feeling mind.

123

“The Seraph, Sympathy, from Heaven descends,
And bright o'er earth his beamy forehead bends;
On Man's cold heart celestial ardor flings,
And showers affection from his sparkling wings;
Rolls o'er the world his mild benignant eye,
Hears the lone murmur, drinks the whisper'd sigh;
Lifts the closed latch of pale Misfortune's door,
Opes the clench'd hand of Avarice to the poor,
Unbars the prison, liberates the slave,
Sheds his soft sorrows o'er the untimely grave,
Points with uplifted hand to realms above,
And charms the world with universal love.

124

“O'er the thrill'd frame his words assuasive steal,
And teach the selfish heart what others feel;
With sacred truth each erring thought control,
Bind sex to sex, and mingle soul with soul;
From heaven, He cried, descends the moral plan,
And gives Society to savage man.

“High on yon scroll, inscribed o'er Nature's shrine,
Live in bright characters the words divine.
“In Life's disastrous scenes to others do,
What you would wish by others done to you.”
—Winds! wide o'er earth the sacred law convey,
Ye Nations, hear it! and ye Kings, obey!

125

“Unbreathing wonder hush'd the adoring throng,
Froze the broad eye, and chain'd the silent tongue;
Mute was the wail of Want, and Misery's cry,
And grateful Pity wiped her lucid eye;
Peace with sweet voice the Seraph-form address'd,
And Virtue clasp'd him to her throbbing breast.”

END OF CANTO III.

127

CANTO IV. OF GOOD AND EVIL.

129

I.

“How few,” the Muse in plaintive accents cries,
And mingles with her words pathetic sighs.—
“How few, alas! in Nature's wide domains
The sacred charm of Sympathy restrains!
Uncheck'd desires from appetite commence,
And pure reflection yields to selfish sense!
—Blest is the Sage, who learn'd in Nature's laws
With nice distinction marks effect and cause;
Who views the insatiate Grave with eye sedate,
Nor fears thy voice, inexorable Fate!

130

“When War, the Demon, lifts his banner high,
And loud artillery rends the affrighted sky;
Swords clash with swords, on horses horses rush,
Man tramples man, and nations nations crush;
Death his vast sithe with sweep enormous wields,
And shuddering Pity quits the sanguine fields.

“The wolf, escorted by his milk-drawn dam,
Unknown to mercy, tears the guiltless lamb;
The towering eagle, darting from above,
Unfeeling rends the inoffensive dove;
The lamb and dove on living nature feed,
Crop the young herb, or crush the embryon seed.
Nor spares the loud owl in her dusky flight,
Smit with sweet notes, the minstrel of the night;
Nor spares, enamour'd of his radiant form,
The hungry nightingale the glowing worm;

131

Who with bright lamp alarms the midnight hour,
Climbs the green stem, and slays the sleeping flower.

“Fell Oestrus buries in her rapid course
Her countless brood in stag, or bull, or horse;
Whose hungry larva eats its living way,
Hatch'd by the warmth, and issues into day.
The wing'd Ichneumon for her embryon young
Gores with sharp horn the caterpillar throng.

132

The cruel larva mines its silky course,
And tears the vitals of its fostering nurse.
While fierce Libellula with jaws of steel
Ingulfs an insect-province at a meal;
Contending bee-swarms rise on rustling wings,
And slay their thousands with envenom'd stings.

“Yes! smiling Flora drives her armed car
Through the thick ranks of vegetable war;

133

Herb, shrub, and tree, with strong emotions rise
For light and air, and battle in the skies;
Whose roots diverging with opposing toil
Contend below for moisture and for soil;
Round the tall Elm the flattering Ivies bend,
And strangle, as they clasp, their struggling friend;
Envenom'd dews from Mancinella flow,
And scald with caustic touch the tribes below;
Dense shadowy leaves on stems aspiring borne
With blight and mildew thin the realms of corn;
And insect hordes with restless tooth devour
The unfolded bud, and pierce the ravell'd flower.

“In ocean's pearly haunts, the waves beneath
Sits the grim monarch of insatiate Death;
The shark rapacious with descending blow
Darts on the scaly brood, that swims below;

134

The crawling crocodiles, beneath that move,
Arrest with rising jaw the tribes above;
With monstrous gape sepulchral whales devour
Shoals at a gulp, a million in an hour.
—Air, earth, and ocean, to astonish'd day
One scene of blood, one mighty tomb display!
From Hunger's arm the shafts of Death are hurl'd,
And one great Slaughter-house the warring world!

135

“The brow of Man erect, with thought elate,
Ducks to the mandate of resistless fate;
Nor Love retains him, nor can Virtue save
Her sages, saints, or heroes from the grave.
While cold and hunger by defect oppress,
Repletion, heat, and labour by excess,

136

The whip, the sting, the spur, the fiery brand,
And, cursed Slavery! thy iron hand;
And led by Luxury Disease's trains,
Load human life with unextinguish'd pains.

“Here laughs Ebriety more fell than arms,
And thins the nations with her fatal charms,
With Gout, and Hydrops groaning in her train,
And cold Debility, and grinning Pain,
With harlot's smiles deluded man salutes,
Revenging all his cruelties to brutes!
There the curst spells of Superstition blind,
And fix her fetters on the tortured mind;
She bids in dreams tormenting shapes appear,
With shrieks that shock Imagination's ear,

137

E'en o'er the grave a deeper shadow flings,
And maddening Conscience darts a thousand stings.

“There writhing Mania sits on Reason's throne,
Or Melancholy marks it for her own,
Sheds o'er the scene a voluntary gloom,
Requests oblivion, and demands the tomb.
And last Association's trains suggest
Ideal ills, that harrow up the breast,

138

Call for the dead from Time's o'erwhelming main,
And bid departed Sorrow live again.

“Here ragged Avarice guards with bolted door
His useless treasures from the starving poor;
Loads the lorn hours with misery and care,
And lives a beggar to enrich his heir.
Unthinking crowds thy forms, Imposture, gull,
A Saint in sackcloth, or a Wolf in wool.

139

While mad with foolish fame, or drunk with power,
Ambition slays his thousand in an hour;
Demoniac Envy scowls with haggard mien,
And blights the bloom of other's joys, unseen;
Or wrathful Jealousy invades the grove,
And turns to night meridian beams of Love!

“Here wide o'er earth impetuous waters sweep,
And fields and forests rush into the deep;
Or dread Volcano with explosion dire
Involves the mountains in a flood of fire;
Or yawning Earth with closing jaws inhumes
Unwarned nations, living in their tombs;
Or Famine seizes with her tiger-paw,
And swallows millions with unsated maw.

“There livid Pestilence in league with Dearth
Walks forth malignant o'er the shuddering earth,

140

Her rapid shafts with airs volcanic wings,
Or steeps in putrid vaults her venom'd stings.
Arrests the young in Beauty's vernal bloom,
And bears the innocuous strangers to the tomb!—

“And now, e'en I, whose verse reluctant sings
The changeful state of sublunary things,
Bend o'er Mortality with silent sighs,
And wipe the secret tear-drops from my eyes,
Hear through the night one universal groan,
And mourn unseen for evils not my own,
With restless limbs and throbbing heart complain,
Stretch'd on the rack of sentimental pain!

141

—Ah where can Sympathy reflecting find
One bright idea to console the mind?
One ray of light in this terrene abode
To prove to Man the Goodness of his God?”

II.

“Hear, O ye Sons of Time!” the Nymph replies,
Quick indignation darting from her eyes;
“When in soft tones the Muse lamenting sings,
And weighs with tremulous hand the sum of things;
She loads the scale in melancholy mood,
Presents the evil, but forgets the good.

142

But if the beam some firmer hand suspends,
And good and evil load the adverse ends;
With strong libration, where the Good abides,
Quick nods the beam, the ponderous gold subsides.

“Hear, O ye Sons of Time! the powers of Life
Arrest the elements, and stay their strife;
From wandering atoms, ethers, airs, and gas,
By combination form the organic mass;
And,—as they seize, digest, secrete,—dispense
The bliss of Being to the vital Ens.
Hence in bright groups from Irritation rise
Young Pleasure's trains, and roll their azure eyes.

143

“With fond delight we feel the potent charm,
When Zephyrs cool us, or when sun-beams warm;
With fond delight inhale the fragrant flowers,
Taste the sweet fruits, which bend the blushing bowers,
Admire the music of the vernal grove,
Or drink the raptures of delirious love.

“So with long gaze admiring eyes behold
The varied landscape all its lights unfold;
Huge rocks opposing o'er the stream project
Their naked bosoms, and the beams reflect;

144

Wave high in air their fringed crests of wood,
And checker'd shadows dance upon the flood;
Green sloping lawns construct the sidelong scene,
And guide the sparkling rill that winds between;
Conduct on murmuring wings the pausing gale,
And rural echoes talk along the vale;
Dim hills behind in pomp aerial rise,
Lift their blue tops, and melt into the skies.

“So when by Handel tuned to measured sounds
The trumpet vibrates, or the drum rebounds;
Alarm'd we listen with ecstatic wonder
To mimic battles, or imagined thunder.
When the soft lute in sweet impassion'd strains
Of cruel nymphs or broken vows complains;
As on the breeze the fine vibration floats,
We drink delighted the melodious notes.

145

But when young Beauty on the realms above
Bends her bright eye, and trills the tones of love;
Seraphic sounds enchant this nether sphere;
And listening angels lean from Heaven to hear.

“Next by Sensation led, new joys commence
From the fine movements of the excited sense;
In swarms ideal urge their airy flight,
Adorn the day-scenes, and illume the night.
Her spells o'er all the hand of Fancy flings,
Gives form and substance to unreal things;

146

With fruits and foliage decks the barren waste,
And brightens Life with sentiment and taste;
Pleased o'er the level and the rule presides,
The painter's brush, the sculptor's chissel guides,
With ray ethereal lights the poet's fire,
Tunes the rude pipe, or strings the heroic lyre:
Charm'd round the nymph on frolic footsteps move
The angelic forms of Beauty, Grace, and Love.

“So dreams the Patriot, who indignant draws
The sword of vengeance in his Country's cause;
Bright for his brows unfading honours bloom,
Or kneeling Virgins weep around his tomb.
So holy transports in the cloister's shade
Play round thy toilet, visionary maid!
Charm'd o'er thy bed celestial voices sing,
And Seraphs hover on enamour'd wing.

“So Howard, Moira, Burdett, sought the cells,
Where want, or woe, or guilt in darkness dwells;

147

With Pity's torch illumed the dread domains,
Wiped the wet eye, and eased the galling chains;
With Hope's bright blushes warm'd the midnight air,
And drove from earth the Demon of Despair.
Erewhile emerging from the caves of night
The Friends of Man ascended into light;
With soft assuasive eloquence address'd
The ear of Power to stay his stern behest;
At Mercy's call to stretch his arm and save
His tottering victims from the gaping grave.
These with sweet smiles Imagination greets,
For these she opens all her treasured sweets,
Strews round their couch, by Pity's hand combined,
Bright flowers of joy, the sunshine of the mind;
While Fame's loud trump with sounds applausive breathes
And Virtue crowns them with immortal wreathes.

“Thy acts, Volition, to the world impart
The plans of Science with the works of art;

148

Give to proud Reason her comparing power,
Warm every clime, and brighten every hour.
In Life's first cradle, ere the dawn began
Of young Society to polish man;
The staff that propp'd him, and the bow that arm'd,
The boat that bore him, and the shed that warm'd,
Fire, raiment, food, the ploughshare, and the sword,
Arose, Volition, at thy plastic word.

“By thee instructed, Newton's eye sublime
Mark'd the bright periods of revolving time;
Explored in Nature's scenes the effect and cause,
And, charm'd, unravell'd all her latent laws.
Delighted Herschel with reflected light
Pursues his radiant journey through the night;
Detects new guards, that roll their orbs afar
In lucid ringlets round the Georgian star.

149

“Inspired by thee, with scientific wand
Pleased Archimedes mark'd the figured sand;
Siezed with mechanic grasp the approaching decks,
And shook the assailants from the inverted wrecks.
—Then cried the Sage, with grand effects elate,
And proud to save the Syracusian state;
While crowds exulting shout their noisy mirth,
‘Give where to stand, and I will move the earth.’
So Savery guided his explosive steam
In iron cells to raise the balanced beam;
The Giant-form its ponderous mass uprears,
Descending nods and seems to shake the spheres.

150

“Led by Volition on the banks of Nile
Where bloom'd the waving flax on Delta's isle,
Pleased Isis taught the fibrous stems to bind,
And part with hammers from the adhesive rind;
With locks of flax to deck the distaff-pole,
And whirl with graceful bend the dancing spole.
In level lines the length of woof to spread,
And dart the shuttle through the parting thread.
So Arkwright taught from Cotton-pods to cull,
And stretch in lines the vegetable wool;
With teeth of steel its fibre-knots unfurl'd,
And with the silver tissue clothed the world.

“Ages remote by thee, Volition, taught
Chain'd down in characters the winged thought;
With silent language mark'd the letter'd ground,
And gave to sight the evanescent sound.

151

Now, happier lot! enlighten'd realms possess
The learned labours of the immortal Press;
Nursed on whose lap the births of science thrive,
And rising Arts the wrecks of Time survive.

“Ye patriot heroes! in the glorious cause
Of Justice, Mercy, Liberty, and Laws,
Who call to Virtue's shrine the British youth,
And shake the senate with the voice of Truth;
Rouse the dull ear, the hoodwink'd eye unbind,
And give to energy the public mind;

152

While rival realms with blood unsated wage
Wide-wasting war with fell demoniac rage;
In every clime while army army meets,
And oceans groan beneath contending fleets;
Oh save, oh save, in this eventful hour
The tree of knowledge from the axe of power;
With fostering peace the suffering nations bless,
And guard the freedom of the immortal Press!
So shall your deathless fame from age to age
Survive recorded in the historic page;
And future bards with voice inspired prolong
Your sacred names immortalized in song.

“Thy power Association next affords
Ideal trains annex'd to volant words,
Conveys to listening ears the thought superb,
And gives to Language her expressive verb;

153

Which in one changeful sound suggests the fact
At once to be, to suffer, or to act;
And marks on rapid wing o'er every clime
The viewless flight of evanescent Time.

“Call'd by thy voice contiguous thoughts embrace
In endless streams arranged by Time or Place;
The Muse historic hence in every age
Gives to the world her interesting page;
While in bright landscape from her moving pen
Rise the fine tints of manners and of men.

154

“Call'd by thy voice Resemblance next describes
Her sister-thoughts in lucid trains or tribes;
Whence pleased Imagination oft combines
By loose analogies her fair designs;
Each winning grace of polish'd wit bestows
To deck the Nymphs of Poetry and Prose.

“Last, at thy potent nod, Effect and Cause
Walk hand in hand accordant to thy laws;
Rise at Volition's call, in groups combined,
Amuse, delight, instruct, and serve Mankind;

155

Bid raised in air the ponderous structure stand,
Or pour obedient rivers through the land;
With cars unnumber'd crowd the living streets,
Or people oceans with triumphant fleets.

“Thy magic touch imagined forms supplies
From colour'd light, the language of the eyes;
On Memory's page departed hours inscribes,
Sweet scenes of youth, and Pleasure's vanish'd tribes.
By thee Antinous leads the dance sublime
On wavy step, and moves in measured time;
Charm'd round the Youth successive Graces throng,
And Ease conducts him, as he moves along;
Unbreathing crowds the floating form admire,
And Vestal bosoms feel forbidden fire.

“When rapp'd Cecilia breathes her matin vow,
And lifts to Heaven her fair adoring brow;
From her sweet lips, and rising bosom part
Impassion'd notes, that thrill the melting heart;

156

Tuned by thy hand the dulcet harp she rings,
And sounds responsive echo from the strings;
Bright scenes of bliss in trains suggested move,
And charm the world with melody and love.

III.

“Soon the fair forms with vital being bless'd,
Time's feeble children, lose the boon possess'd;
The goaded fibre ceases to obey,
And sense deserts the uncontractile clay;
While births unnumber'd, ere the parents die,
The hourly waste of lovely life supply;
And thus, alternating with death, fulfil
The silent mandates of the Almighty Will;
Whose hand unseen the works of nature dooms
By laws unknown—who gives, and who resumes.

“Each pregnant Oak ten thousand acorns forms
Profusely scatter'd by autumnal storms;

157

Ten thousand seeds each pregnant poppy sheds
Profusely scatter'd from its waving heads;
The countless Aphides, prolific tribe,
With greedy trunks the honey'd sap imbibe;

158

Swarm on each leaf with eggs or embryons big,
And pendent nations tenant every twig.
Amorous with double sex, the snail and worm,
Scoop'd in the soil, their cradling caverns form;
Heap their white eggs, secure from frost and floods,
And crowd their nurseries with uncounted broods.
Ere yet with wavy tail the tadpole swims,
Breathes with new lungs, or tries his nascent limbs;
Her countless shoals the amphibious frog forsakes,
And living islands float upon the lakes.

159

The migrant herring steers her myriad bands
From seas of ice to visit warmer strands;
Unfathom'd depths and climes unknown explores,
And covers with her spawn unmeasured shores.
—All these, increasing by successive birth,
Would each o'erpeople ocean, air, and earth.

“So human progenies, if unrestrain'd,
By climate friended, and by food sustain'd,
O'er seas and soils, prolific hordes! would spread
Erelong, and deluge their terraqueous bed;
But war, and pestilence, disease, and dearth,
Sweep the superfluous myriads from the earth.
Thus while new forms reviving tribes acquire
Each passing moment, as the old expire;
Like insects swarming in the noontide bower,
Rise into being, and exist an hour;
The births and deaths contend with equal strife,
And every pore of Nature teems with Life;

160

Which buds or breathes from Indus to the Poles,
And Earth's vast surface kindles, as it rolls!

“Hence when a Monarch or a mushroom dies,
Awhile extinct the organic matter lies;
But, as a few short hours or years revolve,
Alchemic powers the changing mass dissolve;
Born to new life unnumber'd insects pant,
New buds surround the microscopic plant;
Whose embryon senses, and unwearied frames,
Feel finer goads, and blush with purer flames;

161

Renascent joys from irritation spring,
Stretch the long root, or wave the aurelian wing.

“When thus a squadron or an army yields,
And festering carnage loads the waves or fields;
When few from famines or from plagues survive,
Or earthquakes swallow half a realm alive;—
While Nature sinks in Time's destructive storms,
The wrecks of Death are but a change of forms;
Emerging matter from the grave returns,
Feels new desires, with new sensations burns;
With youth's first bloom a finer sense acquires,
And Loves and Pleasures fan the rising fires.—
Thus sainted Paul, ‘O Death!’ exulting cries,
‘Where is thy sting? O Grave! thy victories?’

162

“Immortal Happiness from realms deceased
Wakes, as from sleep, unlessen'd or increased;
Calls to the wise in accents loud and clear,
Sooths with sweet tones the sympathetic ear;
Informs and fires the revivescent clay,
And lights the dawn of Life's returning day.

“So when Arabia's Bird, by age oppress'd,
Consumes delighted on his spicy nest;
A filial Phœnix from his ashes springs,
Crown'd with a star, on renovated wings;
Ascends exulting from his funeral flame,
And soars and shines, another and the same.

163

“So erst the Sage with scientific truth
In Grecian temples taught the attentive youth;
With ceaseless change how restless atoms pass
From life to life, a transmigrating mass;
How the same organs, which to day compose
The poisonous henbane, or the fragrant rose,
May with to morrow's sun new forms compile,
Frown in the Hero, in the Beauty smile.
Whence drew the enlighten'd Sage the moral plan,
That man should ever be the friend of man;
Should eye with tenderness all living forms,
His brother-emmets, and his sister-worms.

“Hear, O ye Sons of Time! your final doom,
And read the characters, that mark your tomb:

164

The marble mountain, and the sparry steep,
Were built by myriad nations of the deep,—
Age after age, who form'd their spiral shells,
Their sea-fan gardens and their coral cells;
Till central fires with unextinguished sway
Raised the primeval islands into day;—
The sand-fill'd strata stretch'd from pole to pole;
Unmeasured beds of clay, and marl, and coal,

165

Black ore of manganese, the zinky stone,
And dusky steel on his magnetic throne,
In deep morass, or eminence superb,
Rose from the wrecks of animal or herb;
These from their elements by Life combined,
Form'd by digestion, and in glands refined,
Gave by their just excitement of the sense
The Bliss of Being to the vital Ens.

“Thus the tall mountains, that emboss the lands,
Huge isles of rock, and continents of sands,
Whose dim extent eludes the inquiring sight,
Are mighty Monuments of past Delight;

166

Shout round the globe, how Reproduction strives
With vanquish'd Death,—and Happiness survives;
How Life increasing peoples every clime,
And young renascent Nature conquers Time;

167

—And high in golden characters record
The immense munificence of Nature's Lord!—

“He gives and guides the sun's attractive force,
And steers the planets in their silver course;
With heat and light revives the golden day,
And breathes his spirit on organic clay;
With hand unseen directs the general cause
By firm immutable immortal laws.”

Charm'd with her words the Muse astonish'd stands,
The Nymphs enraptured clasp their velvet hands;
Applausive thunder from the fane recoils,
And holy echoes peal along the ailes;
O'er Nature's shrine celestial lustres glow,
And lambent glories circle round her brow.

168

IV.

Now sinks the golden sun,—the vesper song
Demands the tribute of Urania's tongue;
Onward she steps, her fair associates calls
From leaf-wove avenues, and vaulted halls.
Fair virgin trains in bright procession move,
Trail their long robes, and whiten all the grove;
Pair after pair to Nature's temple sweep,
Thread the broad arch, ascend the winding steep;
Through brazen gates along susurrant ailes
Stream round their Goddess the successive files;
Curve above curve to golden seats retire,
And star with beauty the refulgent quire.

And first to Heaven the consecrated throng
With chant alternate pour the adoring song,
Swell the full hymn, now high, and now profound,
With sweet responsive symphony of sound.
Seen through their wiry harps, below, above,
Nods the fair brow, the twinkling fingers move;

169

Soft-warbling flutes the ruby lip commands,
And cymbals ring with high uplifted hands.

To Chaos next the notes melodious pass,
How suns exploded from the kindling mass,
Waved o'er the vast inane their tresses bright,
And charm'd young Nature's opening eyes with light.
Next from each sun how spheres reluctant burst,
And second planets issued from the first.
And then to Earth descends the moral strain,
How isles, emerging from the shoreless main,
With sparkling streams and fruitful groves began,
And form'd a Paradise for mortal man.

Sublimer notes record Celestial Love,
And high rewards in brighter climes above;

170

How Virtue's beams with mental charm engage
Youth's raptured eye, and warm the frost of age,
Gild with soft lustre Death's tremendous gloom,
And light the dreary chambers of the tomb.
How fell Remorse shall strike with venom'd dart,
Though mail'd in adamant, the guilty heart;
Fierce furies drag to pains and realms unknown
The blood-stain'd tyrant from his tottering throne.

By hands unseen are struck aerial wires,
And Angel-tongues are heard amid the quires;
From aile to aile the trembling concord floats,
And the wide roof returns the mingled notes,
Through each fine nerve the keen vibrations dart,
Pierce the charm'd ear, and thrill the echoing heart.—

Mute the sweet voice, and still the quivering strings,
Now Silence hovers on unmoving wings.—
—Slow to the altar fair Urania bends
Her graceful march, the sacred steps ascends,

171

High in the midst with blazing censer stands,
And scatters incense with illumined hands:
Thrice to the Goddess bows with solemn pause,
With trembling awe the mystic veil withdraws,
And, meekly kneeling on the gorgeous shrine,
Lifts her ecstatic eyes to Truth Divine!

END OF CANTO IV.