And sung to harps of angels, for with you,
Ethereal flames! ambitious, I aspire
In Nature's general symphony to join.

And what new wonders can ye show your guest?
Who, while on this dim spot, where mortals toil
Clouded in dust, from Motion's simple laws,
Could trace the secret hand of Providence,
Wide working through this universal frame.
Have ye not listen'd while he bound the suns
And planets to their spheres! the unequal task
Of human-kind till then. Oft had they roll'd
O'er erring man the year, and oft disgraced
The pride of schools, before their course was known
Full in its causes and effects to him,

All-piercing sage! Who sat not down and dream'd
Romantic schemes, defended by the din
Of specious words, and tyranny of names;
But, bidding his amazing mind attend,
And with heroic patience years on years
Deep-searching, saw at last the system dawn,
And shine, of all his race, on him alone.

What were his raptures then! how pure! how strong!

And what the triumphs of old Greece and Rome,

By his diminish'd, but the pride of boys

In some small fray victorious! when, instead
Of shatter'd parcels of this earth usurp'd

By violence unmanly, and sore deeds
Of cruelty and blood, Nature herself
Stood all-subdued by him, and open laid
Her every latent glory to his view.

All intellectual eye, our solar round
First gazing through, he, by the blended power
Of gravitation and projection, saw

The whole in silent harmony revolve.
From unassisted vision hid, the moons,
To cheer remoter planets numerous form'd,
By him in all their mingled tracts were seen.
He also fix'd our wandering Queen of Night,

Whether she wanes into a scanty orb,

Or, waxing broad, with her pale shadowy light,
In a soft deluge overflows the sky.

Her every motion clear-discerning, he
Adjusted to the mutual main, and taught
Why now the mighty mass of waters swells
Resistless, heaving on the broken rocks,
And the full river turning: till again
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,
A universe complete! And O, beloved
Of Heaven! whose well-purged penetrating 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 wide 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 aerial 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.
F'en light itself, which everything 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,
Ethereal 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.

Did ever poet image aught so fair,

Dreaming in whispering groves, by the hoarse brook?
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? but when 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 eye diffusive saw
The finish'd university of things,

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 firmly stablish'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.

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 awhile,
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 worshipp'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 human-kind, 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.