Vi 



TO ERASMUS DARWIN. 



Eyes with mute rapture every waving line, 

 Prints with adoring kifs the Paphian fhrine, 

 And learns ere long, the perfecl form confefs'd, 

 Ideal Beauty from its mother's breaft. 



Now in ftrong lines, with bolder tints defign'd, 

 You fketch ideas, and portray the mind ; 

 Teach how fine atoms of impinging light 

 To ceafelefs change the vifual fenfe excite : 

 While the bright lens coiled s the rays, that fwcrve, . 

 And bends their focus on the moving nerve. 

 How thoughts to thoughts are link'd with viewlefs chains, 

 Tribes leading tribes, and trains purfuing trains ; 

 With fhadowy trident how Volition guides, 

 Surge after furge, his intellectual tides ; 

 Or, Queen of Sleep, Imagination roves 

 With frantic Sorrows, or delirious Loves. 



Go on, O Friend ! explore with eagle-eye; 

 Where wrapp'd in night retiring Caufes lie : 

 Trace their ilight bands, their fecret haunts betray, 

 And give new wonders to the beam of day ; 

 Till, link by link with ftep afpiring trod, 

 You climb from Nature to the throne of God* 



So faw the Patriarch with admiring eyes 



From earth to heaven a golden ladder rife ; 

 Involv'd in clouds the myftic fcale afcends, 

 And brutes and angels crowd the diftant ends. 



Trin, Col. Cambridge, Jan. i, 1794. 



35 



4» 



45 



50 



55 



REFERENCES. 



hoiamc Garden, Part I. 

 Line 1. Canto I. 1. 105. 

 IV. 



Line 18. Seel. XVI. 2. and XXXVUL 



3- 

 4- 

 5- 

 8. 



9- 



iz. 

 *3- 



I. 

 III. 



IV 



I. 



1. 40Z. 

 1. 140. 

 1. 401. 

 1. 45*. 

 1 14. 



Z&onomia. 



Sed. XIII. 



XXXIX.4. I. 



a6. 

 SO- 

 36. 



•38. 

 •43- 



44. 



45. 



47. 



50. 



5i- 

 54, 



- XVI. 4. 

 . XVI. 4. 

 . XVI. 6. 



- III. and VH. 



- X. 



■ XVIII. 17. 



XVII. 3. 7. 



XVIII. 8. 

 XXXIX.4- 8. 

 XXXIX- the MotU. 

 XXXIX. &. 



