Classic Poem

Makes Nature maps? since that in thee
She's drawn an university;
Or strives she in so small a piece
To sum the arts and sciences?
Once she writ only text-hand, when
She scribbled giants and no men:
But now in her decrepid years
She dashes dwarfs in characters,
And makes one single farthing bear
The creed, commandments, and Lord's prayer.
Would she turn Art, and imitate
Monte-regio's flying gnat?
Would she the Golden Legend shut
Within the cloister of a nut;
Or else a musket bullet rear
Into a vast and mighty sphere?
Or pen an eagle in the caul
Of a slender nightingale;
Or shew, she pigmies can create
Not too little but too great?
How comes it that she thus converts
So small a totum and great parts?
Strives she now to turn awry
The quick scent of philosophy?
How, so little matter can
So monstrous big a form contain;
What shall we call (it would be known)
This giant and this dwarf in one?
His age is blabb'd by silver hairs,
His limbs still cry out want of years;
So small a body in a cage
May chuse a spacious hermitage;
So great a soul doth fret and fume
At th' narrow world for want of room.
Strange conjunction! here is grown
A molehill and the Alps in one;
In th' selfsame action we may call
Nature both thrift and prodigal.