Encourag'd at the sight of thee,

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

Ev'n 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,

Thy nimble pencil paints this landscape as thou go'st.

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 doat;

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

With flame condens'd 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 withhold, And be less liberal to gold!

Didst thou less value to it give,

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! ev'n to thee.

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

Which

Like a clear river thou dost glide,

And with thy living stream through the close chan'nels 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 th' empyrean heaven does stay.

Thy rivers, lakes, and springs, below,

From thence took first their rise, thither at last must flow.

то

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 manag'd or enjoy'd his vast estate.

Three or four thousand years, one would have thought,
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 t' 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, captiv'd Philosophy;
But 't was 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 injur'd pupil's cause.

Authority-which did a body boast,

Though 't was but air condens'd, and stalk'd about,

Like some old giant's more gigantick ghost,

To terrify the learned rout

With the plain magick of true Reason's light

He chac'd out of our sight;

Nor suffer'd living men to be misled

By the vain shadows of the dead;

To graves, from whence it rose, the conquer'd phan

tom fled.

He broke that monstrous God which stood

In midst of th' 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 't is 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 mechanick way,
Till all their juice did in one vessel join,
Ferment into a nourishment divine,

The thirsty soul's refreshing wine.

}