Hast thou, enthron'd in flaming glory, driv'n
Triumphant round the spacious ring of heaven?
That pomp of light, what hand so far displays,
That distant earth lies basking in the blaze?

Who did the soul with her rich powers invest, And light up reason in the human breast. To shine, with fresh increase of lustre, bright, When stars and sun are set in endless night? To these my various questions make reply. Th' Almighty spoke, and, speaking, shook the sky. What then, Chaldean Sire! was thy surprise? Thus thou, with trembling heart, and downcast eyes: "Once and again, which I in groans deplore, "My tongue has err'd, but shall presume no more. "My voice is in eternal silence bound,

"And all my soul falls prostrate to the ground."

He ceas'd: when, lo! again th' Almighty spoke The same dread voice from the black whirlwind broke!

Can that arm measure with an arm divine?
And canst thou thunder with a voice like mine?
Or in the hollow of thy hand contain

The bulk of waters, the wide-spreading main,
When, mad with tempests, all the billows rise
In all their rage, and dash the distant skies?
Come forth, in Beauty's excellence array'd,
And be the grandeur of thy power display'd;

Put on omnipotence, and, frowning, make
The spacious round of the creation shake;
Dispatch thy vengeance, bid it overthrow
Triumphant Vice, lay lofty tyrants low,

And crumble them to dust. When this is done,
I grant thy safety lodg'd in thee alone;

Of thee thou art, and mayst undaunted stand
Behind the buckler of thine own right hand.
Fond man! the vision of a moment made!

Dream of a dream! and shadow of a shade!

What worlds hast thou produc'd, what creatures

fram'd,

What insects cherish'd, that thy God is blam'd?
When, pain'd with hunger, the wild raven's brood
Loud calls on God,* importunate for food;
Who hears their cry, who grants their hoarse request,
And still the clamour of the craving nest?

* Another argument that Moses was the author is, that most of the creatures here mentioned are Egyptian. The reason given why the raven is particularly mentioned as an object of the care of Providence is, because by her clamorous and importunate voice she particularly seems always calling upon it. And since there were ravens on the Nile more clamorous than the rest of that species, those probably are meant in this place.

Who in the stupid ostrich* has subdu'd

A parent's care, and fond inquietude?

While far she flies, her scatter'd eggs are found,
Without an owner on the sandy ground;
Cast out on fortune, they at mercy lie,
And borrow life from an indulgent sky:
Adopted by the Sun, in blaze of day,
They ripen under his prolific ray;
Unmindful she that some unhappy tread
May crush her young in their neglected bed :

There are many instances of this bird's stupidity: let two suffice. First, it cover its heads in the reeds, and thinks itself all out of sight.

Secondly, They that go in the pursuit of them draw the skin of an ostrich's neck on one hand, which proves a sufficient lure to take them with the other.

They have so little brain, that Heliogabalus had six hundred heads for his supper.

Here we may see that our judicious as well as sublime author just touches the points of distinction in each creature, and then hastens to another. A description is exact when you cannot add, but what is common to another thing; nor withdraw, but something peculiarly belonging to the thing described. A likeness is lost in too much description, as a meaning often in too much illustration.

What time she skims along the field with speed,*
She scorns the rider and pursuing steed.†

How rich the peacock!‡ what bright glories run From plume to plume, and vary in the sun! He proudly spreads them to the golden ray, Gives all his colours, and adorns the day; With conscious state the spacious round displays, And slowly moves amid the waving blaze.

Who taught the hawk to find, in seasons wise, Perpetual summer, and a change of skies? When clouds deform the year, she mounts the wind, Shoots to the south, nor fears the storm behind;

* Here is marked another peculiar quality of this creature, which neither flies nor runs directly, but has a motion composed of both, and, using its wings as sails, makes great speed.

+ Xenophon says, Cyrus had horses that could overtake the goat and the wild ass, but none that could reach this creature. A thousand golden ducats, or an hundred camels, was the stated price of a horse that could equal their speed.

Though this bird is but just mentioned in my author, I could not forbear going a little further, and spreading those beautiful plumes (which are shut up) into half a dozen lines. The circumstance I have marked of his opening his plumes to the sun is true : Expandit colores adversa maxim sole, quia sic fulgentius radiant. Plin. lx. c. 20.

The sun returning, she returns again,

Lives in his beams, and leaves ill days to men.
Tho' strong the hawk, tho' practis'd well to fly,*
An eagle drops her in a lower sky:

An eagle, when, deserting human sight,
She seeks the sun in her unwearied flight:
Did thy command her yellow pinion lift
So high in air, and seat her on the clift,
Where far above thy world she dwells alone,
And proudly makes the strength of rocks her own;
Thence wide o'er nature takes her dread survey,
And with a glance predestinates her prey ?†
She feasts her young with blood, and, hovʼring o'er
Th' unslaughter'd host, enjoys the promis'd gore.

* Thuanus ( De re Accip.) mentions a hawk that flew from Paris to London in a night.

And the Egyptians, in regard to its swiftness, made it their symbol for the wind; for which reason we may suppose the hawk, as well as the crow above, to have been a bird of note in Egypt.

†The eagle is said to be of so acute a sight, that when she is so high in the air that man cannot see her, she can discern the smallest fish under water. My author accurately understood the nature of the creatures he describes, and seems to have been a naturalist as well as a poet, which the next note will confirm.