Page:The Bible of Nature, and Substance of Virtue.djvu/30

Thee, now I sing of Nature, I must choose
A patron to my verse, be thou my muse;
And make my lines, whilst I to Memmius write,
Thy choice, thy most deserving favorite:
Inspire my breast with an unusual flame,
Sprightly as his wit, immortal as his fame.
Let war's tumultuous noise and labors cease,
Let earth and sea enjoy a solid peace.
For 'midst rough wars how can verse smoothly flow,
Or 'midst such storms the learned laurel grow?
I treat of things abstruse, the deity,
The vast and steady motions of the sky;
The rise of things, how curious Nature joins
The various seed, and in one mass combines
The jarring principles: what new supplies
Bring nourishment and strength: how she unties
The Gordian knot, and the poor compound dies:
Of what she makes, to what she breaks the frame,
Call'd seeds or principles; though either name
We use promiscuously, the thing's the same.
For whatsoe'ers divine, must live in peace,
In undisturb'd and everlasting ease:
Long time men lay opprest with slavish fear,
Religion's tyranny did domineer,
Which being plac'd in heaven look'd proudly down,
And frighted abject spirits with her frown.
At length a mighty one of Greece began
T' assert the natural liberty of man,
By senseless terrors and vain fancies led
To slavery; straight the conquer'd Phantoms fled.
Not the fam'd stories of the deity,
Not all the thunder of the threatening sky
Could stop his rising soul; through all he past
The strongest bounds that powerful Nature cast;
His vigorous and active mind was hurl'd
Beyond the flaming limits of this world
Into the mighty space, and there did see
How things begin, what can, what cannot be;
How all must die, all yield to fatal force,
What steady limits bound their natural course:
He saw all this, and brought it back to us