O unprofuse magnificence divine!
O wisdom truly perfect! thus to call
From a few causes such a scheme of things,
Effects so various, beautiful, and great,
An universe complete! And O beloved

Of Heaven, whose well-purged, penetrative eye,
The mystic veil transpiercing, inly scann'd
The rising, moving, wide-establish'd frame !
He first of men with awful wing pursued
The comet through the long elliptic curve,
As round innumerous worlds he wound his way;
Till, to the forehead of our evening sky
Return'd, the blazing wonder glares anew,
And o'er the trembling nations shakes dismay.
The heavens are all his own; from the wild rule
Of whirling vortices and circling spheres,
To their first great simplicity restored.
The Schools astonish'd stood; but found it vain
To combat still with demonstration strong,
And, unawaken'd, dream beneath the blaze
Of truth. At once their pleasing visions fled,
With the gay shadows of the morning mix'd,
When Newton rose, our philosophic sun.

The' aerial flow of sound was known to him,
From whence it first in wavy circles breaks,
Till the touch'd organ takes the message in.
Nor could the darting beam of speed immense
Escape his swift pursuit and measuring eye.
Even light itself, which every thing displays,
Shone undiscover'd, till his brighter mind
Untwisted all the shining robe of day;
And, from the whitening undistinguish'd blaze,
Collecting every ray into his kind,

To the charm'd eye educed the gorgeous train
Of parent colours. First the flaming Red
Sprung vivid forth; the tawny Orange next;
And next delicious Yellow; by whose side
Fell the kind beams of all-refreshing Green :
Then the pure Blue, that swells autumnal skies,
Ethereal play'd; and then, of sadder hue,
Emerged the deepen'd Indigo, as when
The heavy-skirted evening droops with frost;
While the last gleamings of refracted light

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Pied in the fainting Violet away.

These, when the clouds distil the rosy shower,
Shine out distinct adown the watery bow;
While o'er our heads the dewy vision bends
Delightful, melting on the fields beneath.
Myriads of mingling dyes from these result,
And myriads still remain; infinite source
Of beauty ever blushing, ever new!

Did ever poet image aught so fair,

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Dreaming in whispering groves, by the hoarse brook? 120
Or prophet, to whose rapture heaven descends?
Sven now the setting sun and shifting clouds,
Seen, Greenwich, from thy lovely heights, declare
How rust, how beauteous, the refractive law.

The noiseless tale of time, all bearing down

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Ph vast suuruity's an ounded sea,

Ware in gen islands of the happy shine,

te vem i one and to the source (involved
*ine vai room ascending, raised

fis nous a aqual distances, to guide
sena viuerim tas irksome way.
Rave a number up his labours? who
fis not isoveros sing' when but a few

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Whs: wands thoner that his devotion swell'd

How shal the Vess then grasp the mighty theme!

Face's lighter thought,

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The social Passions smiling at thy heart,
That glows with all the recollected sage.

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And you, ye hopeless, gloomy-minded tribe,
You who, unconscious of those nobler flights
That reach impatient at immortal life,
Against the prime endearing privilege
Of being dare contend, say, can a soul
Of such extensive, deep, tremendous powers,
Enlarging still, be but a finer breath

Of spirits dancing through their tubes awhile,
And then for ever lost in vacant air?

But hark! methinks I hear a warning voice,
Solemn as when some awful change is come,

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Sound through the world, ""T is done, the measure's full;
And I resign my charge." Ye mouldering stones,
That build the towering pyramid, the proud
Triumphal arch, the monument effaced
By ruthless ruin, and whate'er supports
The worshipp'd name of hoar Antiquity,

Down to the dust! What grandeur can ye boast
While Newton lifts his column to the skies,
Beyond the waste of time? Let no weak drop
Be shed for him. The virgin in her bloom
Cut off, the joyous youth, and darling child,—

These are the tombs that claim the tender tear
And elegiac song. But Newton calls

For other notes of gratulation high,

That now he wanders through those endless worlds
He here so well descried, and wondering talks,
And hymns their Author, with his glad compeers.
O Britain's boast! whether with angels thou
Sittest in dread discourse, or fellow-bless'd
Who joy to see the honour of their kind;
Or whether, mounted on cherubic wing,
Thy swift career is with the whirling orbs,
Comparing things with things, in rapture lost
And grateful adoration for that light

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So plenteous ray'd into thy mind below From LIGHT HIMSELF; 0, look with pity down On human-kind, a frail erroneous race! Exalt the spirit of a downward world! O'er thy dejected country chief preside, And be her genius call'd; her studies raise, Correct her manners, and inspire her youth. For, though depraved and sunk, she brought thee forth, And glories in thy name; she points thee out To all her sons, and bids them eye thy star; While, in expectance of the second life, When time shall be no more, thy sacred dust Sleeps with her kings, and dignifies the scene.

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BRITANNIA:

A POEM.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR MDCCXXVII.

-Et tantas audetis tollere moles?

Quos ego-sed motos præstat componere fluctus.
Post mihi non simili pœnâ commissa luetis.
Maturate fugam, regique hæc dicite vestro :
Non illi imperium pelagi, sævumque tridentem,
Sed mihi sorte datum.-VIRGILII Æneid. lib. i. 134.

As on the sea-beat shore BRITANNIA sat,

Of her degenerate sons the faded fame,
Deep in her anxious heart, revolving sad;
Bare was her throbbing bosom to the gale,

That hoarse and hollow from the bleak surge blew ;

Loose flow'd her tresses; rent her azure robe.
Hung o'er the deep, from her majestic brow
She tore the laurel, and she tore the bay.
Nor ceased the copious grief to bathe her cheek,
Nor ceased her sobs to murmur to the main.
Peace discontented nigh, departing, stretch'd

Her dove-like wings; and War, though greatly roused,
Yet mourn'd his fetter'd hands: while thus the queen
Of nations spoke; and what she said the Muse
Recorded, faithful, in unbidden verse :—

"Even not yon sail, that, from the sky-mix'd wave,
Dawns on the sight, and wafts the royal youth,*
A freight of future glory, to my shore;
Even not the flattering view of golden days,
And rising periods yet of bright renown,
Beneath the parents, and their endless line
Through late-revolving time, can soothe my rage,
While, unchastised, the' insulting Spaniard dares
Infest the trading flood, full of vain war
Despise my navies, and my merchants seize,

*Frederick Prince of Wales, then lately arrived.

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