Classic Poem

Ye Sons of Science mourn with me
In sad and doleful Strains,
The Loss which fair Philosophy
And Literature sustains.

Three Volumes of enormous Size,
O, C—n had penned,
And lent them, for to make him wise,
To an ingenious Friend;

Who on the puzzling Pages por'd
Three live-long Summer Days;
But cou'd not understand one Word:
For so my Author says.

He thro' the palpable obscure,
Grop'd out his uncouth Way,
Where neither Truth nor Reason pure
Had shed one Friendly Ray.

In Newton, Bacon, Locke , and Boyle ,
He found celestial Light;
Whose sacred Beams o'er-paid his Toil;
But here reign'd deepest Night.

In fam'd Laputa's floating Isle,
As Gulliver has taught,
They swallow Learning like a Pill,
Without Expence of Thought.

This Way he try'd, but all in Vain,
Those Writings ne'er ascend;
They Gravitation's Laws maintain,
And to the Center tend.

Enrag'd to find all Methods fail,
These Works, he surely said,
May be adapted to the Tail,
Tho' never to the Head.

These Sybil Leaves, Oh Spite and Shame!
In Pieces torn he takes,
And wip'd a Part not fit to name,
And plung'd them in a Jakes.

Wake C—n thy noble Heart,
Explore that hoary Deep;
Nor suffer thine immortal Part
In Silence there to sleep.

Or on the Orifice all Day
Thy nether End expose,
By whose inspiring Fumes you may
New Systems yet compose.

Henceforth be scorn'd great Maro's Tomb,
And eke the Delphic Shrine;
For that fam'd Privy-house, whose Womb
Contains thy Works divine.