As notions, meteors of the brain;
And sights performed, illusive scene!
By magic lantern of the spleen.
Come here, from baleful cares released,
With Virtue's ticket, to a feast,
Where decent mirth and wisdom joined
In stewardship, regale the mind.
Call back the Cupids to your eyes;
I see the godlings with surprise,
Not knowing home in such a plight,
Fly to and fro, afraid to light.---
Far from my theme, from method far,
Conveyed in Venus' flying car,
I go compelled by feathered steeds,
That scorn the rein when Delia leads.
No daub of elegiac strain
These holy wars shall ever stain;
As spiders Irish wainscot flee,
Falsehood with them shall disagree:
This floor let not the vulgar tread,
Who worship only what they dread:
Nor bigots who but one way see
Through blinkers of authority;
Nor they who its four saints defame
By making virtue but a name;
Nor abstract wit, (painful regale
To hunt the pig with slippery tail!)
Artists who richly chase their thought,
Gaudy without, but hollow wrought,
And beat too thin, and toolid too much
To bear the proof and standard touch;
Nor fops to guard this sylvan ark
With necklace bells in treble bark;
Nor Cynics growl and fiercely paw,
The mastiffs of the moral law.
Come, Nymph, with rural honours dress’d,
Virtue's exterior form confess'd,
With charms untarnished, innocence
Display, and Eden shall commence:
When thus you come in sober fit,
And wisdom is preferred to wit;
And looks diviner graces tell,
Which don't with giggling muscles dwell;
And beauty like the ray-clipt sun,
With bolder eye we look upon;
Learning shall with obsequious mien
Tell all the wonders she has seen;
Reason her logic armour quit,
And proof to mild persuasion fit;
Religion with free thought dispense,
And cease crusading against sense;
Philosophy and she embrace,
And their first league again take
place;
And morals pure, in duty bound,
,
,
Nymph-like the sisters' chief surround:
Nature shall smile, and round this cell
The turf to your light pressure swell,
And knowing beauty by her shoe,
Well air its carpet from the dew.
The Oak, while you his umbrage deck,
Lets fall his acorns in your neck:
Zephyr his civil kisses gives,
And plays with curls, instead of leaves:
Birds, seeing you, believe it spring,
And during their vacation sing;
And flowers lean forward from their seats
To traffic in exchange of sweets;
And angels bearing wreaths descend,
Preferred as vergers to attend
This fane, whose deity entreats
The fair to grace its upper seats.
.
O kindly view our lettered strife,
And guard us through polemic life;
From poison vehicled in praise,
For satire's shots but slightly graze;
We claim your zeal, and find within,
Philosophy and you are kin.
What Virtue is we judge by you;
For actions right are beauteous too;
By tracing the sole female mind,
We best what is true Nature find:
Your vapours bred from fumes declare,
How steams create tempestuous air,
'Till gushing tears and hasty rain
Make heaven and you serene again:
Our travels through the starry skies
Were first suggested by your eyes;
We by th' interposing fan,
Learn how eclipses first began;
The vast ellipse from Scarbro's home,
Describes how blazing comets roam;
The glowing colours of the cheek
Their origin from Phoebus speak;
Our watch how Luna strays above
Feels like the care of jealous love;
And all things we in science know
From your known love for riddles flow.
Father! forgive, thus far I stray,
Drawn by attraction from my way.
Mark next with awe, the foundress well
Who on these banks delights to dwell;
You on the terrace see her plain,
Move like Diana with her train.
If
you
then fairly speak your mind,
In wedlock since with Isis joined,
You'll own, you never yet did see,
At least in such a high degree,
Greatness delighted to undress:
Science a scentred nand caress :
A queen the friends of freedom prize;
A woman wise men canonize.
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