While with quick growth young Vegetation yields

Her blushing orchards, and her waving fields;
Pomona's hand replenish'd Plenty's horn,

And Ceres laugh'd amid her feas of corn.

Bird, beast, and reptile, fpring from fudden birth,
Raise their new forms, half-animal, half-earth; 410
The roaring lion shakes his tawny mane,

His ftruggling limbs still rooted in the plain;
With flapping wings affurgent eagles toil

To rend their talons from the adhesive foil;
The impatient ferpent lifts his crefted head,
And drags his train unfinish'd from the bed.---
As Warmth and Moisture blend their magic fpells,
And brood with mingling wings the flimy dells;

As Warmth and Moisture, 1. 417.

In eodem corpore fæpe

Altera pars vivit ; rudis eft pars altera tellus.

Quippe ubi temperiem fumpfêre humorque calorque,

Concipiunt; & ab his oriuntur, cuncta duobus.

OVID. MET. 1. 1. 430.

This story from Ovid of the production of animals from the

Contractile earths in fentient forms arrange,

And Life triumphant stays their chemic

change."

420

Then hand in hand along the waving glades The virgin Sifters pass beneath the shades; Ascend the winding steps with paufing march, And feek the Portico's fufurrant arch; Whose sculptur❜d architrave on columns borne Drinks the first blushes of the rifing morn, Whose fretted roof an ample shield displays, And guards the Beauties from meridian rays. While on light step enamour'd Zephyr springs, And fans their glowing features with his wings, 430

mud of the Nile seems to be of Egyptian origin, and is probably a poetical account of the opinions of the magi or priests of that country; showing that the fimpleft animations were spontaneously produced like chemical combinations, but were distinguished from the latter by their perpetual improvement by the power of reproduction, firft by folitary, and then by fexual generation; whereas the products of natural chemistry are only enlarged by accretion, or purified by filtration.

Imbibes the fragrance of the vernal flowers,

And speeds with kiffes sweet the dancing Hours.

Urania, leaning with unftudied grace,
Refts her white elbow on a column's bafe;
Awhile reflecting takes her filent stand,

Her fair cheek prefs'd upon her lily hand;
Then, as awaking from ideal trance,

On the smooth floor her pausing steps advance,
Waves high her arm, upturns her lucid eyes,

Marks the wide fcenes of ocean, earth, and

fkies;

440

And leads, meandering as it rolls along

Through Nature's walks, the fhining stream of

Song.

First her sweet voice in plaintive accents chains

The Mufe's ear with facinating strains;

Reverts awhile to elemental strife,

The change of form, and brevity of life

Then tells how potent Love with torch fublime

Relights the glimmering lamp, and conquers Time. -The polish'd walls reflect her rofy fmiles,

And sweet-ton'd echoes talk along the aisles. 450

END OF CANTO I.

ORIGIN OF SOCIETY.

CANTO II.

REPRODUCTION OF LIFE.