Classic Poem

BOOK II.

Thus does the mazed inexplicable round,
The aspiring bard, and all his flights confound;
Ambitious thro' his airy tour to sing,
High born above the soar of Pegasean wing;
Or raised sublime in prospect, while he turns,
Views nature round, and still with rapture burns:
Now in this light the charmer he surveys,
This light he hopes her every charm displays;
But here unthought of charms discovered lie,
And flash new wonders on the admiring eye;
While B EAUTY , changing with alternate grace,
Varies the heaven of her all lovely face.
Bewilder'd thus, from scheme to scheme he's tost,
And in inextricable windings lost;
Where to begin, proceed, or how conclude,
This part omit, or hopeless that elude,
Doubtful. Again elated in his theme,
A daring unexampled task he'd claim,
And wide unsold the Universal Frame;
In mortal draught I MMORTAL B EAUTY snare,
And stamp this leaf as Nature's volume fair.

High argument! nor hopeless to prevail,
Though for the flight Dedalian plumage fail;
Tho' erst of that ambitious youth we read,
Dismounted from the Muse's fabled steed,
And story with alluding caution tell,
How from the sun's bright car the headlong driver fell:
Nature, unerring tutoress, shall preside,
And through her endless revolutions guide;
Her various maze its windings shall unbraid,
Her doublings trace themselves, while self betrayed
Her complications to connection lead.

For while the circumambient air we sing,
Its springy tension, and elastick spring;
The quick vibration of the yielding mass;
How objects thro' its lucid medium pass;
For Nature how the smiling glass expands;
Narcissus like, how beauteous Nature stands,
Self-loved within the splendid mirror shines,
But self enjoy'd, nor like Narcissus pines;
How, as a talisman of magick frame,
This atmosphere conveys the enlightening beam,
Reflects, inflects, refracts the orient ray;
Anticipating sheds the rising day —
High from his seat the solar glory heaves,
(Whose image fires the horizontal waves)
Abridging, shears the sable robe of night,
And thro' the globe protracts the chearful light;
With sweet preambling twilight blends the shade,
And gently lets our evening beam recede.

Thus, born on airy wings the radiance flies,
Quickening the vision of poetick eyes;
Whence we may pierce into the deep profound,
And, searching, view the wondrous system round:
For wide as universal Nature spreads,
Light's sacred fount its streaming lustre sheds;
Still orient, to the parting beam succeeds;
Thro' azure climes a sumless journey speeds;
Its restless longitude the glory darts,
Nor less a boundless latitude imparts;
Where matter borders on retiring space,
Impulsive urges the perpetual race;
Stupendous length, illimited by aught
Of numbers summ'd or multiplied by thought!
But whence the Light's invigorating force,
Its active energy, or secret source,
Must be ascribed to that E ternal S PRING ,
Whom First, and Last, and ever Blest we sing —
Who only could his effluent Angel send;
Athwart the gulph the radiant blaze extend;
Kindle the mass to incorporeal speed;
The flame, with never dying splendors feed;
With heat, the universal page unseal;
With light, the universal charm reveal;
In prospect wide the illustrious work display,
And gem the pavement of the milky-way;
Make grace from use, and use from beauty flow;
With florid pencil, shade the jasper bow;
The warring elements in wedlock bind,
Water and fire, dull earth and active wind;
Knit by Almighty Order they cohere,
And in their ever varying offsprings share.

First to the deep H E speeds his eldest born,
Whose rosy progress paints the purpling morn;
The mingling glories o'er the surface play,
And ocean dances to the trembling ray.

Wide to the beam his ample sea H E spreads,
And deep beneath subside the briny beds;
The spacious beds the liquid realms contain;
The seasoning tinctures purge the foamy main;
But, poised by balance of eternal weight,
The salts perpetual hold their watery seat,
Nor in the tepid exhalations mount,
To fire the chrystal of the cooloing fount,
The Almighty F IAT bade the deep conceive,
And sinned with clustring tribes the vital wave,
From huge Leviathan's enormous frame,
To those who tincturing paint the crimson stream;
With watery wings they skim the yielding seas;
Their central poise its gravitation weighs.