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THE MEMORY

OF

SIR ISAAC NEWTON,

SHALL the great soul of Newton quit this earth,
To mingle with his stars; and every Muse,
Astonish'd into silence, shun the weight

Of honours due to his illustrious name?
But what can man?-Even now the sons of light,
In strains high-warbled to seraphic lyre,

Hail his arrival on the coast of bliss.

Yet am not I deterr'd, though high the theme,
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 his universal frame.

Have ye not listen'd while he bound the suns And planets to their spheres! th' unequal task Of human-kind till then. Oft had they roll'd and oft disgrac'd

O'er erring man the year,

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 ever 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 water 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 farther in successive skies
To fancy shine alone, at his approach
Blazed into suns, the living centre each
Of an harmonious system: all combin'd,
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 belov'd
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 pursu'd
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 restor❜d.
The schools astonish'd stood; but found it vain
To combat still with demonstration strong,
And, unawakened, dream beneath the blaze
Of truth. At once their pleasing visions fled,