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The tide revertive, unattracted, leaves
A yellow waste of idle sands behind.

Then breaking hence, he took his ardent flight Through the blue infinite; and every star, Which the clear concave of a winter's night Pours on the eye, or astronomic tube, Far-stretching, snatches from the dark abyss; Or such as further in successive skies To fancy shine alone, at his approach Blazed into suns, the living centre each Of an harmonious system: all combined, And ruled unerring by that single power, Which draws the stone projected to the ground. O unprofuse magnificence divine ! O wisdom truly perfect! thus to call From a few causes such a scheme of things, Effects so various, beautiful, and great, An universe complete! And O, beloved Of Heaven! whose well-purged penetrative eye The mystic veil transpiercing, inly scann'd The rising, moving, wide-establish'd frame.

He, first of men, with awful wing pursued The Comet through the long elliptic curve, As round innumerous worlds he wound his way; Till, to the forehead of our evening sky Return'd, the blazing wonder glares anew, And o'er the trembling nations shakes dismay. The heavens are all his own; from the wild rule Of whirling Vortices, and circling Spheres, To their first great simplicity restored. The schools astonish'd stood; but found it vain To combat still with demonstration strong, And, unawaken'd, dream beneath the blaze Of truth. At once their pleasing visions fled,

With the gay shadows of the morning mix'd,
When Newton rose, our philosophic sun!

The aërial flow of sound was known to him,
From whence it first in wavy circles breaks,
Till the touch'd organ takes the message in.
Nor could the darting beam, of speed immense,
Escape his swift pursuit, and measuring eye.
E'en Light itself, which every thing displays,
Shone undiscover'd, till his brighter mind
Untwisted all the shining robe of day;
And, from the whitening undistinguish'd blaze,
Collecting every ray into his kind,

To the charm'd eye educed the gorgeous train
Of parent-colours. First the flaming Red
Sprung vivid forth; the tawny Orange next;
And next delicious Yellow; by whose side
Fell the kind beams of all-refreshing Green.
Then the pure Blue, that swells autumnal skies,
Etherial play'd; and then, of sadder hue,
Emerged the deepen'd Indigo, as when
The heavy-skirted evening droops with frost.
While the last gleamings of refracted light
Died in the fainting Violet away.

These, when the clouds distil the rosy shower,
Shine out distinct adown the watery bow;
While o'er our heads the dewy vision bends
Delightful, melting on the fields beneath.
Myriads of mingling dyes from these result,
And myriads still remain; infinite source
Of beauty, ever blushing, ever new.

[brook?

Did ever poet image aught so fair, Dreaming in whispering groves, by the hoarse Or prophet, to whose rapture Heaven descends? E'en now the setting Sun and shifting clouds,

Seen, Greenwich, from thy lovely heights, declare How just, how beauteous the refractive law.

The noiseless tide of Time, all bearing down To vast Eternity's unbounded sea,

Where the green islands of the happy shine,
He stemm'd alone; and to the source (involved
Deep in primeval gloom) ascending, raised
His lights at equal distances, to guide
Historian, wilder'd on his darksome way.

But who can number up his labours? who
His high discoveries sing? when but a few
Of the deep-studying race can stretch their minds
To what he knew: in Fancy's lighter thought,
How shall the Muse then grasp the mighty theme?
What wonder thence that his devotion swell'd
Responsive to his knowledge? For could he,
Whose piercing mental diffusive saw
The finish'd university of things,

eye

In all its order, magnitude, and parts,
Forbear incessant to adore that Power
Who fills, sustains, and actuates the whole?
Say, ye who best can tell, ye happy few,
Who saw him in the softest lights of life,
All unwithheld, indulging to his friends
The vast unborrow'd treasures of his mind,
Oh, speak the wondrous man! how mild, how calm,
How greatly humble, how divinely good;
How firm establish'd on eternal truth;
Fervent in doing well, with every nerve
Still pressing on, forgetful of the past,
And panting for perfection: far above
Those little cares, and visionary joys,
That so perplex the fond impassion'd heart
Of ever-cheated, ever-trusting man.

148

MEMORY OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON.

And you, ye hopeless gloomy-minded tribe, You who, unconscious of those nobler flights That reach impatient at immortal life, Against the prime endearing privilege Of Being dare contend, say, can a soul Of such extensive, deep, tremendous powers, Enlarging still, be but a finer breath

Of spirits dancing through their tubes a while,
And then for ever lost in vacant air?

But hark! methinks I hear a warning voice, Solemn as when some awful change is come, Sound through the world-Tis done!-The measure's full;

And I resign my charge.'-Ye mouldering stones,
That build the towering pyramid, the proud
Triumphal arch, the monument effaced
By ruthless ruin, and whate'er supports
The worship'd name of hoar Antiquity,
Down to the dust! what grandeur can ye boast
While Newton lifts his column to the skies,
Beyond the waste of time. Let no weak drop
Be shed for him. The virgin in her bloom
Cut off, the joyous youth, and darling child,
These are the tombs that claim the tender tear,
And elegiac song. But Newton calls
For other notes of gratulation high,

That now he wanders through those endless worlds
He here so well descried, and wondering talks,
And hymns their Author with his glad compeers.
O Britain's boast! whether with angels thou
Sittest in dread discourse, or fellow-bless'd,
Who joy to see the honour of their kind;
Or whether, mounted on cherubic wing,
Thy swift career is with the whirling orbs,

Comparing things with things, in rapture lost,
And grateful adoration, for that light
So plenteous ray'd into thy mind below,
From light himself; Oh, look with pity down
On humankind, a frail erroneous race!
Exalt the spirit of a downward world!
O'er thy dejected Country chief preside, -
And be her Genius call'd! her studies raise,
Correct her manners, and inspire her youth.
For, though depraved and sunk, she brought thee
forth,

And glories in thy name; she points thee out
To all her sons, and bids them eye thy star:
While in expectance of the second life,
When time shall be no more, thy sacred dust
Sleeps with her kings, and dignifies the scene.

ON THE

DEATH OF MR. AIKMAN1.

OH, could I draw, my friend, thy genuine mind,
Just as the living forms by thee design'd;

Of Raphael's figures none should fairer shine,
Nor Titian's colours longer last than mine.
A mind in wisdom old, in lenience young,
From fervent Truth where every virtue sprung;

1 Mr. Aikman was born in Scotland, and designed for the profession of the law but travelled to Italy, and returned a painter. He was patronized in Scotland by the Duke of Argyle, and afterwards met with encouragement to settle in London but falling into a long and languishing disease, he died at his house in Leicester-fields, June, 1731, aged 50. Boyse wrote a panegyric upon him, and Mallet an epitaph. See Walpole's Anecdotes, vol. iv. p. 41.

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