Sacred to the Memory of
SIR ISAAC NEWTΟΝ.
Inscribed to the Right Honourable
SIR ROBERT WALPOLE.
HALL the great foul of Newton quit this earth
To mingle with his stars, and every Muse,
Astonish'd into filence, shun the weight
Of honours due to his illustrious name?
But what can man?-Even now the fons of Light, 5
In strains high warbled to feraphic lyre,
Hail his arrival on the coaft of blifs.
Yet am not I deterr'd, tho' high the theme,
And fung to harps of angels, for with you,
Ethereal Flames! ambitious, I afpire
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 thro' this univerfal 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 O'er erring man the year, and oft' disgrac'd
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-fearching, faw 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, 31 By his diminish'd, but the pride of boys In fome small fray victorious! when, instead
Of shatter'd parcels of this earth ufurp'd
By violence unmanly, and fore deeds
Of cruelty and blood, Nature herself
Stood all fubdu'd by him, and open laid
Her every latent glory to his view.
All intellectual Eye, our solar round First gazing thro', he by the blended power Of Gravitation and Projection faw The whole in filent 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 the wanes into a scanty orb, Or, waxing broad, with her pale shadowy light,
In a foft deluge, overflows the sky.
Her every motion clear-difcerning, he
Adjusted to the mutual main, and taught
Why now the mighty mass of water swells
Refistless, 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
Thro' 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 fuch as farther in successive skies
To Fancy shine alone, at his approach
Blaz'd into suns, the living centre each
Of an harmonious system; all combin'd,
And rul'd 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 univerfe complete! and, O belov'd
Of Heaven! whose well-purg'd penetrative eye
The mystic veil transpiercing, inly scann'd
The rifing, moving, wide-establish'd frame.
He, first of men, with awful wing pursu'd
The Comet thro' 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 85
To combat still with demonftration strong,
And, unawakened, dream beneath the blaze
Of Truth. At once their pleasing visions fled,
With the gay shadows of the morning mix'd,
When Newton rofe, our philofophic Sun.
Th' aërial 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 immenfe
Escape his swift pursuit and meafuring eye.
Even Light itself, which every thing 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 educ'd 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 fadder hue,
Emerg'd the deepened Indico, as when
The heavy-skirted evening droops with frost;
While the last gleamings of refracted light
Dy'd in the fainting Violet away.
These, when the clouds distil the rosy shower,
Shine out diftinct adown the watry 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-flushing, ever-new!
Did ever poet image aught fo fair, Dreaming in whispering groves by the hoarse brook! Or prophet, to whose rapture Heaven descends! 121 Even now the fetting fun and shifting clouds, Seen, Greenwich, from thy lovely heights, declare How juft, how beauteous the refractive law.
The noiseless tide of time, all bearing down 125 To vast eternity's unbounded fea,
Where the green iflands of the happy shine,
He stemm'd alone, and to the fource (involv'd
Deep in primeval gloom) afcending, rais'd
His lights at equal distances, to guide
Historian, wilder'd on his darksome way.
But who can number up his labours? whe
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