Night, and her ugly subjects, thou dost fright,
And Sleep, the lazy owl of night;

Ashamed, and fearful to appear,

[sphere.

They screen their horrid shapes with the black hemi

With them there hastes, and wildly takes the' alarm, Of painted dreams a busy swarm:

At the first opening of thine eye

The various clusters break, the antic atoms fly.

The guilty serpents, and obscener beasts,
Creep, conscious, to their secret rests:
Nature to thee does reverence pay,
Ill omens and ill sights removes out of thy way.

At thy appearance, Grief itself is said

To shake his wings, and rouse his head:
And cloudy Care has often took

A gentle beamy smile, reflected from thy look.

At thy appearance, Fear itself

grows bold; Thy sunshine melts away his cold.

Encouraged at the sight of thee,

To the cheek colour comes, and firmness to the knee.

Even Lust, the master of a harden'd face,
Blushes, if thou be'st in the place,

To Darkness' curtains he retires;

In sympathizing night he rolls his smoky fires.

When, Goddess! thou lift'st up thy waken'd head, Out of the morning's purple bed,

Thy quire of birds about thee play,

And all the joyful world salutes the rising day.

The ghosts, and monster-spirits, that did presume A body's privilege to assume,

Vanish again invisibly,

And bodies gain again their visibility.

All the world's bravery, that delights our eyes, Is but thy several liveries;

Thou the rich dye on them bestow'st,

[go'st.

Thy nimble pencil paints this landscape as thou

A crimson garment in the rose thou wear'st;
A crown of studded gold thou bear'st;

The virgin-lilies, in their white,

Are clad but with the lawn of almost naked light.

The violet, Spring's little infant, stands
Girt in thy purple swaddling-bands:
On the fair tulip thou dost dote;

Thou cloth'st it in a gay and party-colour'd coat.

With flame condensed thou dost thy jewels fix, And solid colours in it mix:

Flora herself envies to see

Flowers fairer than her own, and durable as she.

Ah, Goddess! would thou couldst thy hand withAnd be less liberal to gold!

Didst thou less value to it give,

[hold,

Of how much care, alas! might'st thou poor man relieve!

To me the sun is more delightful far,

And all fair days much fairer are.

But few, ah! wondrous few, there be,

Who do not gold prefer, O Goddess! even to thee.

Through the soft ways of heaven, and air, and sea, Which open all their pores to thee,

Like a clear river thou dost glide,

And with thy living stream through the close channels slide.

But, where firm bodies thy free course oppose,
Gently thy source the land o'erflows;
Takes there possession, and does make,
Of colours mingled light, a thick and standing lake.

But the vast ocean of unbounded day
In the' empyrean heaven does stay.
Thy rivers, lakes, and springs, below,

[flow.

From thence took first their rise, thither at last must

ΤΟ

THE ROYAL SOCIETY.

PHILOSOPHY, the great and only heir
Of all that human knowledge which has been
Unforfeited by man's rebellious sin,
Though full of years he do appear
(Philosophy, I say, and call it He;
For, whatsoe'er the painter's fancy be,
It a male-virtue seems to me),

Has still been kept in nonage till of late,

Nor managed or enjoy'd his vast estate. [thought, Three or four thousand years, one would have To ripeness and perfection might have brought A science so well bred and nurst,

And of such hopeful parts too at the first: But, oh! the guardians and the tutors then (Some negligent and some ambitious men)

Would ne'er consent to set him free,
Or his own natural powers to let him see,
Lest that should put an end to their authority.

That his own business he might quite forget,
They amus'd him with the sports of wanton wit;
With the desserts of poetry they fed him,
Instead of solid meats to' increase his force;
Instead of vigorous exercise, they led him
Into the pleasant labyrinths of ever-fresh discourse;
Instead of carrying him to see

The riches which do hoarded for him lie
In Nature's endless treasury,
They chose his eye to entertain

(His curious but not covetous eye)
With painted scenes and pageants of the brain.
Some few exalted spirits this latter age has shown,
That labour'd to assert the liberty

(From guardians who were now usurpers grown) Of this old minor still, captived Philosophy; But 'twas rebellion call'd, to fight

For such a long-oppressed right.
Bacon at last, a mighty man, arose

(Whom a wise king, and Nature, chose,
Lord chancellor of both their laws),

And boldly undertook the injured pupil's cause.

Authority-which did a body boast,

Though 'twas but air condensed, and stalk'd about, Like some old giant's more gigantic ghost,

To terrify the learned rout—

With the plain magic of true Reason's light
He chased out of our sight;

VOL. I.

B B

Nor suffer'd living men to be misled
By the vain shadows of the dead;

[tom fled.
To graves, from whence it rose, the conquer'd phan-
He broke that monstrous God which stood
In midst of the' orchard, and the whole did claim;
Which with a useless scythe of wood,
And something else not worth a name
(Both vast for show, yet neither fit
Or to defend, or to beget;

Ridiculous and senseless terrors !) made
Children and superstitious men afraid.
The orchard's open now, and free,
Bacon has broke the scare-crow deity:
Come, enter, all that will,

Behold the ripen'd fruit, come gather now your fill!
Yet still, methinks, we fain would be

Catching at the forbidden tree

We would be like the Deity

When truth and falsehood, good and evil, we, Without the senses' aid, within ourselves would see; For 'tis God only who can find

All Nature in his mind.

From words, which are but pictures of the thought (Though we our thoughts from them perversely

drew),

To things, the mind's right object, he it brought:
Like foolish birds, to painted grapes we flew ;
He sought and gather'd for our use the true;
And, when on heaps the chosen bunches lay,
He press'd them wisely the mechanic way,
Till all their juice did in one vessel join,
Ferment into a nourishment divine,
The thirsty soul's refreshing wine.