TO 



ERASMUS DARWIN, 



ON HIS WORK INTITLED 



Z O O N O M I A. 



By DEWHURST BILS BORROW. 



HAIL TO THE BARD! who fung, from Chaos hurPd 

 How funs and planets forra'd the whirling world ; 

 How fphere onfphere Earth's hidden ftrata bend, 

 And caves of rock her central fires defend ; 

 Where gems new-born their twinkling eyes unfold, 5 



And young ores (hoot in arborefcent gold. 



How the fair Flower, by Zephyr woo'd, unfurls 

 Its panting leaves, and waves its azure curls ; 

 Or fpreads in gay undrefs its lucid form 



To meet the fun, and (huts it to the ftorm ; 10 



While in green veins impaffion'd eddies move, 

 And Beauty kindles into fire and love. 



How the firft embryon-fibre, fphere, or cube, 

 Lives in new forms a line a ring a Lube ; 

 Clofed in the womb with limbs unfinim'd laves, I j 



Sips with rude mouth the falutary waves ; 

 Seeks round its cell the fanguine ftreams, that pafs, 

 And drinks with crimfon gills the vital gas ; 

 Weaves with foft threads the blue meandering vein, 

 The heart's red concave, and the filver brain ; 20 



Leads the long nerve, expands the impatient fenfe, 

 And clothes in filken (kin the nafcent Ens. 

 Erewhile, emerging from its liquid bed, 

 It lifts in gelid air its nodding head ; 



The light's firft dawn with trembling eyelid hails, 25 



With lungs untaught arrefts the balmy gales ; 

 Tries its new tongue in tones unknown, and hears 

 The ftrange vibrations with unpraclifed ears; 



