CANTO r. PRODUCTION OF LIFE. o 



While chain'd reluctant on the marble ground, 

 Indignant TIME reclines, by Sculpture bound; 80 



And sternly bending o'er a scroll unroll'd, 

 Inscribes the future with his style of gold. 

 So erst, when PROTEUS on the briny shore, 

 New forms assum'd of eagle, pard, or boar; 

 The wise ATRIDES bound in sea-weed thongs 

 The changeful god amid his scaly throngs; 

 Till in deep tones his opening lips at last 

 Reluctant told the future and the past. 



HERE o'er piazza'd courts, and long arcades, 

 The bowers of PLEASURE root their waving shades; QO 

 Shed o'er the pansied moss a checker'd gloom, 

 Bend with new fruits, with flow'rs successive bloom. 



So erst, when Proteus, 1. 83. It seems probable that Proteus was 

 the name of a hieroglyphic figure representing Time; whose form 

 was perpetually changing, and who could discover the past events of 

 the world, and predict the future. Herodotus does not doubt but 

 that Proteus was an Egyptian king or deity ; and Orpheus calls him 

 the principle of all things, and the most ancient of the gods; and 

 adds, that he keeps the keys of Nature, Danet's Diet, all which 

 might well accord with a figure representing Time. 



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