The poems of Dr. Yalden :: :: University of Virginia Library

Art, when in full perfection, is design'd
To please the eye, or to inform the mind:
This nobler piece performs the double part,
With graceful beauty and instructive art.
Since the great Archimedes' sphere was lost,
The noblest labour finish'd it could boast;
No generous hand durst that fam'd model trace,
Which Greece admir'd, and Rome could only praise.
This you, with greater lustre, have restor'd,
And taught those arts we ignorantly ador'd:
Motion in full perfection here you've shown,
And what mankind despair'd to reach, have done.

In artful frames your heavenly bodies move,
Scarce brighter in their beauteous orbs above;
And stars, depriv'd of all malignant flames,
Here court the eye with more auspicious beams:
In graceful order the just planets rise,
And here complete their circles in the skies;
Here's the full concert of revolving spheres,
And Heaven in bright epitome appears.

With charms the ancients did invade the Moon,
And from her orb compell'd her struggling down;
But here she's taught a nobler change by you,
And moves with pride in this bright sphere below:
While your celestial bodies thus I view,
They give me bright ideas of the true;
Inspir'd by them, my thoughts dare upward move,
And visit regions of the blest above.

Thus from your hand w' admire the globe in small,
A copy fair as its original:
This labour's to the whole creation just,
Second to none, and rival to the first.
The artful spring, like the diffusive soul,
Informs the machine, and directs the whole:
Like Nature's self, it fills the spacious throne,
And unconfin'd sways the fair orbs alone;
Th' unactive parts with awful silence wait,
And from its nod their birth of motion date:
Like Chaos, they obey the powerful call,
Move to its sound, and into measures fall.