Classic Poem

And intersected horizon, arise.
See, wondrous thus how each sagacious root,
As marksmen, to their several signals shoot;
What Cause revers'd the separate bias guides,
And whence the still dissenting movement glides.

Their figures, pliant to some plastic S KILL ,
Alike obsequious to I TS secret W ILL ,
With pointed cone the yielding strata pass;
Or here, accumulate their bulbous mass;
Here bulky, taper, parted, or entire;
Here writhing, twist their complicated wire;
Here ramified, their forky branches spread;
Or tassell'd here, their fibrous fringes shed;
Adjusted thro' each multifarious sect,
And efficacious t some point elect —
Elect, within while W ISDOM dwells replete,
I NCOMPREHENSIVE thro' H IS sacred seat.

Hence, hence alone, the final causes tend,
And reach unerring each appointed end;
The maze of endless implication wind,
Directed by the clue of All P ERCEIVING M IND .
Hence from the Seraph's intellectual ray,
To reason's spark, that gilds our sensual clay;
To life (scarce conscious) in the instinctive brute;
To reptile, plant, and vegetating root;
The features in conspicuous semblance shine,
And speak, thro' all, O NE P ARENT All D IVINE .

Thus answering lively to organic sense,
The plants half animate their powers dispense:
The mouth's analogy their root displays,
And for the intestine viscera purveys;
Their liquors thro' respondent vessels flow,
And organ like their fibrous membranes grow:
Nor yet inadequate their congruous use
Of mucilages, lymph, and lacteal juice;
The flood consimilary ducts receive,
And glands refine the separated wave;
Redounding vapours thro' the pores transpire,
And for the fresh ingredient guests retire.
Revers'd, their trachae operate from beneath,
And thro' the trunk aerial conduits breathe;
Their lignous fibres with continuous length,
Equivalent, compact a bony strength;
But formed elastic, with inclining shade,
Their yielding stems each stormy gust evade:
So forest pints the aspiring mountain cloath,
And self-erected towers the stately growth.

But where the strength of mighty fabric fails,
There art with ample recompence avails,
By interposing skill to poise the eternal scales;
While these, more valid thro' dependence gain,
And strong in indigence on Nature lean.
Thus from the couch of earth's embroider'd bed,
In elegance of vernal foliage spread;
From pulse leguminous, of verdurous hue;
From herbal tribes, bedropp'd with morning dew;
The gourd, inhabiting the pastured glade;
The tufted bush, and umbelliferous shade;
The feeble stems that luscious viands bear,
Nor less sublime their pampered tension rear:
Thro' botany, thro' every sylvan scene,
That various deck the vegetating plain,
Even to the proud primaeval sons of earth,
That rise superior in their right of birth,
Whose heights the blasting volley'd thunder stand,
In ruin still magnificently grand;
Distinct, each species of peculiar frame,
Distinct, peculiar love and fondness claim;
Indulged by Nature's kind parental care,
As each alone were her appointed heir.

Thus mantling snug beneath a verdant veil,
The creepers draw their horizontal trail;
Wide o'er the bank the plantal reptile bends,
Adown its stem the rooty fringe depends,
The feeble boughs with anchoring safety binds,
Nor leaves precarious to insulting winds.
The tendrils next, of slender helpless size,
Ascendant thro' luxuriant pampering rise;
Kind Nature sooths their innocence of pride,
While buoy'd aloft the flowering wantons ride;
With fond adhesion round the cedar cling,
And wreathing circulate their amorous ring;
Sublime with winding maturation grow,
And clench'd retentive gripe the topmost bough;
Here climb direct the ministerial rock,
And clasping firm its steepy fragments lock;
Or various, with agglutinating guile,
Cement tenacious to some neighbouring pile;
Investing green, some fabric here ascend,
And clustering o'er its pinacles depend.

Defective, where contiguous props evade,
Collateral they spring with mutual aid;
Officious brace their amicable band,
And by reciprocal communion stand:
Bless'd model! (by humanity expell'd)
The whole upholding each, the whole by each upheld.
Their social branch the wedded plexures rear,
(Proximity of combination dear)
High arching, cypher love's enamour'd knot,
And wave the fragrance of inviting grot,