NATURE NOT LIABLE TO DECAY.

From a College Exercise in Latin Verse by MILTON.

BY THE REV. H. BOYD.

TARO' what long labyrinths, and weary ways
The devious Mind her barren track pursues!
!
Plung'd in primeval gloom, like him of THEBES
She yet presumes, with blind and random reach
Lost in the palpable obscure, to span
The figur'd world, and match the giant range
Of superhuman powers, with reptile pace;
Or on th' eternal adamant, to spell
The statutes of existence, to her laws
Of transient energy, fondly compar'd.-
Idly she deems the sport of pigmy forms
That dance in momentary mirth and fall,
Like the dread pageants of eternity.

SHALL Man presume to spy in Nature's face
Engrav'd by time, the reverend marks of age
Extreme? And shall the general Mother's womb
In dry sterility forget to bear?-

Shall her step falter, and th' Olympian crown
Sidereal, on her palsied temples threat
To shed its honours like the mellow food
Of old insatiate time? And shall the stars
Permit the long-collected scurf of years
To dim their lamps? Inexorable power!
Will nought the craving of thy gorge supply
But
yon celestial orbs?fell parricide !

Tiresias.

Wilt thou devour thy Parent? him, who gives
Feet to thy haste, and pinions to thy wings?—
COULD not the power, who bade the mundane
wheel

Spin on its axle, give the proud machine
Rotation ever voluble to scorn

The counter-current of relentless Time?
Must this proud convex of created space
(Shoulder'd by ruin from its basis deep)
Derange its lofts, with horrible descent
And thund'ring overthrow? Must either pole
Start from its hinge in horror, and the King
Olympian fall dethron'd? Shall Pallas find
(With indignation swallow'd up by dread)
The frore glance of that blood-congealing form
Gorgonean, on her ægis to the course
Of Nature's deadly foe oppos'd in vain ?
Must she fall headlong like the Lemnian God
Hurl'd from the Zenith by his angry sire
Omnipotent? And shall the flaming steeds
Of Phoebus, leave the long diurnal road
Trac'd by his fervid wheels, and dart away
With their pale charioteer, like Clymen's son
Prone to mid ocean? Her blue deities,
Shall they behold the fiery fall, and hear
His glowing axle in the booming wave
With dread explosion plunging, whilst aloft
In giant pomp ascends the pillar'd fume
Shading the watry kingdom? Shall the range
Ceraunian, and the pride of Hamus, leave
Their rocking basis, o'er the nether world
Pil'd with stupendous masonry, and fright
The sovereign of the spectred bands, who sees
His stage of combat, when he fought with Heaven,

VOL. V.

Thro' Hades hurl'd, on his defenceless head
With loud precipitation and steep fall?

BUT surely HE, who rules the sum of things,
Has founded this proud fabric on the deep
With better omen, and with prescience clear
Has taught the fates that turn the ample wheel
In equable, smooth revolution, still
To wind the mighty circle, ne'er allow'd
To fall from its primeval poise again :

It still revolves, as that omnific hand

The impulse gave, and spins the months and years
Turning with lordly sweep the tide of stars
In blazon'd pageantry and mighty march
Around the lofty theatre of Heaven.

-Still Saturn keeps his slow, deliberate pace;
And Mars for ever his bright falchion wheels
In fiery dance, and waves his ruby crest.
Hyperion shines in everlasting youth
Nor nearer earth his weary axle windes
But still along the broad ecliptic moves
Among his kindred constellations borne.
Still gentle Phosphor to his starry flock
Sends the bright signal from the Indian steep,
High twinkling o'er his aromatic groves,
To bid them leave the dawning fields of Heaven
Now when the fiushing tide of light returns
In lambent flow, and floods her azure plains..
Stealing along with soft foot, o'er Japan,
Or from his station o'er the western wave
Still marks where crimson-vested eve surveys
The broad Atlantic with a parting smile,
Then wafts again his followers from the fold
To pour their squadrons o'er the welkin wide,
And repossess the desolated fields

Of Ether. Still his limitary hand

Flings o'er the face of things the raven pall
Of night alternate, and the dazzling fold
Of day's embroidered vest.
Still Phobe wears

Her mask of beams, or walks the nightly round
Of Heaven unseen, or in her vestal arms
Her brother's radiant boon of light displays
High o'er the tributary waves. Nor less
Yon elements preserve their ancient faith.
Still 'gainst the red right hand of angry Jove
The mountain lifts his giant brow, and meets
His thunders in mid volley. Nor along
The waste of air the tempest lifts her voice
With less terrific sound. The tyrant north
Still o'er the shuddering tenant of the pole
Breathes frore and moulds her hail, or sifts her sleet.
Still round the headland of Pelorus raves
The sovereign of the floods, and Triton still
With lungs Eolean fills his deep-ton'd shell
And to the finny droves his descant loud
Still breathes. Egæon still amid the deep
The broad Leviathan bestrides, and laves
In middle ocean his gigantic sides.

Earth owns her first luxuriance. Still the flowers
Give their primeval scents, the daffodil

That weeps the doom of sad Narcissus, still

Preserves the soft charms, and the balmy breath
Of the love-smitten boy. The Hyacinth

Beloved by Phoebus, and the Paramour

Of Cytherea still retain their hue.

Nor less redundant riches still within

Her wide and ransack'd bosom, deep immerst,

The universal Mother yet contains:

Nor round her wide bays, and her cavern'd gloom Less gemmy treasures than of old, emblaze

With faery light, the chambers of the deep.
The changing series thus of all things keeps
Its ancient tenour still, and still will hold
Till in full tide the fiery deluge comes
Over creation, and its flames involve
The blazing poles, with yon empyreal roof,
And the proud fabric of the world subsides
Like a fallen pageant in the burning wave.

ЕРІТАРН.

BY DR. DRENNAN.

M. D. Born June 3, died September 16, 1803.

SHORT was thy day, sweet Babe, but this will give
A longer space of heavenly life to live;

Yet with delight you drew your balmy breath,
And the first pain you seem'd to feel was Death.
Nor Death itself could violate thy face,
The pleas'd expression, and the placid grace.
I now commit thee to a Mother's breast,

Where thou shalt sleep, and wake to be more blest;
New beams of meaning kindle in thine eyes,
And a new world excite their glad surprise.
Soon, by thy side, shall rise a rustic tomb
And the turf heave to give thy Father room.
-Enough to consecrate this humble bier,
Thy infant innocence-his gushing tear!