162 ORIGIN OF SOCIETY. ' CANTO iv. 



" Immortal Happiness from realms deceased 

 Wakes, as from sleep, unlessen'd or increased; 

 Calls to the wise in accents loud and clear, 

 Sooths with sweet tones the sympathetic ear; 

 Informs and fires the revivescent clay, 

 And lights the dawn of Life's returning day. 410 



" So when Arabia's Bird, by age oppress'd, 

 Consumes delighted on his spicy nest; 

 A filial Phcenix from his ashes springs, 

 Crown'd with a star, on renovated wings; 

 Ascends exulting from his funeral flame, 

 And soars and shines, another and the same. 



And lights the dawn, I. 410. The sum total of the happiness of 

 organized nature is probably increased rather than diminished, when 

 one large old animal dies, and is converted into many thousand 

 young ones; which are produced or supported with their numerous 

 progeny by the same organic matter. Linneus asserts, that three of 

 the flies, called musca vomitoria, will consume the body of a dead 

 horse, as soon as a lion can; Syst. Nat. 



So when Arabia's bird, 1. 411. The story of the Phrenix rising from 

 its own ashes with a star upon its head seems to have been an hiero- 

 glyphic emblem of the destruction and resuscitation of all things; 

 see Botan. Garden, Vol. I. Canto IV. 1. 389. 



