Classic Poem

I.

Now rose, adorn'd with Beauty's brightest hues,
The graceful Hierophant , and winged M USE ;
Onward they step around the stately piles,
O'er porcelain floors, through laqueated aisles,
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 Fauns and Naiads crowd in silent rings,
And hovering Cupids stretch their purple wings.

II.

" F IRST 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 I RRITATION 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 S ENSATION every nerve excites.

" Oft from sensation quick V OLITION 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 A SSOCIATION steers,
And sweet vibrations charm the astonish'd ears.

" O N rapid feet o'er hills, and plains, and rock,
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 insects 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.

" H ENCE 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,
I DEAL B EAUTY from its Mother's breast.

" Now on swift wheels descending like a star
Alights young E ROS from his radiant car;
On angel-wings attendant Graces move,
And hail the God of S ENTIMENTAL L OVE .
Earth at his feet extends her flowery bed,
And bends her silver blossoms round his head;
Dark clouds dissolve, the warring winds subside,
And similing 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 G OD for young D IONE 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;
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 S OCIETY in silken chains.

IV.

" I F the wide eye the wavy lawns explores,
The bending woodlands, or the winding shores,
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 ;
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.

" 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;
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,
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 G ENIUS -F ORM , on silver slippers borne,
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;
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,
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 ring 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 I MITATION springs,
And apes the outlines of external things;
With ceaseless action to the world imparts
All moral virtues, languages, and arts.
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 I MITATION 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 T ITIAN 's living tints;
The glowing limb, fair cheek, and flowing hair,
Respiring bosom, and seductive air,
He justly copies with enamour'd sigh
From Beauty's image pictured on his eye.

" Thus when great A NGELO 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,
Aisles, 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 M IMICRY in every age
With silent language charms the attentive stage;
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 I MITATION marks the mind of Man.

VI.

" W HEN 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 L ANGUAGE enters at the sight.

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

" Thus the first L ANGUAGE , 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,
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.
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 T IME .

" The G IANT F ORM 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 " T IME SHALL BE NO MORE ! "

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

VII.

" As the softlips and pliant tongue are taught
With other minds to interchange the thought;
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 R EASON 's empire o'er the world presides,
And man from brute, and man from man divides;
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;
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;
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, V OLITION , still attend
The means of pleasure to secure the end;
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 K NOWLEDGE hung;
Flow'd with sweet Innocence the tranquil hours,
And Love and Beauty warm'd the blissful bowers.
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.

" L AST , 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 refined,
And soft emotions mark the feeling mind.

" The Seraph, S YMPATHY , 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.

" O'er the thrill'd frame his words assuasive steal,
Add 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.
" I N L IFE'S DISASTROUS SCENES TO OTHERS DO ,
W HAT 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!

" 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. "