Classic Poem

As lately o'er the Historick page I por'd
With laws and Customs of the ancients Stor'd
Their various tenets to my view arose
Their rise in arts their progress and their close
The Silver moon high in her zenith reign'd
And food and rest the mute creation chain'd
But musing deep beside my midnight fire
Whose dying embers urg'd me to retire
Fatigu'd and spent my limbs refuse their aid
And Morpheus on my eyes his plummet laid
A balmy Slumber soon my Senses bind
And airy visions occupy my mind
In fancys region suffer'd free to rove
My foot steps trac'd the pythagorian grove.
Methought I saw the venerable shade
Who sweet instruction to the soul convey'd
The youth of Athens led to nobler aims
And clear'd their minds with philosophick beams
Their breasts with transmigrations Law he warms
And love to being thro its various forms
While true benevolence in his precepts shine,
The fable deep the moral all devine,
But still some doubts within my mind remain'd
Which to the sage made known he soon explain'd
The spark he said of the immortal mind
The God of nature ne'er to brutes consign'd
But those who quench with vice th'etherial flame
Degenerate into brutes of meanest name
To clear your doubts each talent Ill exert
And strive to prove the doctrine I assert
By shewing you how matter does refine
And still associate with the ray devine.
See Homers Soul return to visit earth
In Miltons form obtains a nobler birth
In Search of truth while years and ages roll
Thro various bodies his progressive Soul
Had lent his aid to highten human joys
And then broke out in Miltons heavenly voice
The Youth of greece he taught in epick Song
When all her rising states were fair and young
And Milton sacred bard in latter time
Inchants the soul with subjects more sublime
Like Homer blind but to his soul was given
A light as clear as is the face of heaven
And tho thick darkness cloath'd his visual ray
In his enlighten'd mind was pour'd the day
His mental Sight with quick perception blest
And Images of all thats great impresst.
Thus spake the sage — when Morpheus as in Spight
Threw down my book and wak'd me for the night
But this Conclusion from my dream I drew
That possibly this system might be true
And that a Homer form'd a Miltons mind
And that a Newton, Boyle and Lock refin'd
And so by just gradations law we move
Till all shall centre in the orb of love.