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Each circling wheel a wreath of flowers entwines,
And gemmed with flowers the silken harness shines;
The golden bits with flowery studs are decked,
And knots of flowers the crimson reins connect.-

And now on earth the silver axle rings,
And the shell sinks upon its slender springs;
Light from her airy seat the goddess bounds,
And steps celestial press the pansied grounds.

Fair Spring advancing calls her feathered choir,
And tunes to softer notes her laughing lyre;
Bids her gay hours on purple pinions move,
And crowns her zephyrs with the shafts of love.
Pleased Gnomes, ascending from their earthy beds,
Play round her graceful footsteps as she treads;
Gay Sylphs attendant beat the fragrant air

On winnowing wings, and waft her golden hair;
Blue nymphs emerging leave their sparkling streams,
And Fiery Forms alight from orient beams;
Musked in the rose's lap fresh dews they shed,
Or breathe celestial lustres round her head.

First the fine forms her dulcet voice requires,
Which bathe or bask in elemental fires;
From each bright gem of Day's refulgent car,
From the pale sphere of every twinkling star,
From each nice pore of ocean, earth, and air,
With eye of flame the sparkling hosts repair,
Mix their gay hues, in changeful circles play,
Like motes that tenant the meridian ray.-
So the clear lens collects with magic power
The countless glories of the midnight hour;
Stars after stars with quivering lustre fall,
And twinkling glide along the whitened wall.-
Pleased, as they pass, she counts the glittering bands,
And stills their murmur with her waving hands,
Each listening tribe with fond expectance burns,
And now to these, and now to those, she turns.
"Nymphs of primeval fire! your vestal train
Hung with gold tresses o'er the vast inane,
Pierced with your silver shafts the throne of night,
And charmed young Nature's opening eyes with light.
When love divine, with brooding wings unfurled,

Called from the rude abyss the living world.

'Let there be light!' proclaimed the Almighty Lord; Astonished Chaos heard the potent word; Through all his realms the kindling ether runs,

And the mass starts into a million suns;

Earths round each sun with quick explosions burst, And second planets issue from the first;

Bend, as they journey with projectile force,
In bright ellipses their reluctant course;
Orbs wheel in orbs, round centres centres roll,
And form, self-balanced, one revolving whole.
-Onward they move amid their bright abode,
Space without bound, the bosom of their God!
"Ethereal powers! you chase the shooting stars,
Or yoke the vollied lightnings to your cars;
Cling round the aerial bow with prisms bright,
And pleased untwist the seven-fold threads of light;
Eve's silken couch with gorgeous tints adorn,
And fire the arrowy throne of rising morn :
-Or, plumed with flame, in gay battalions spring,
To brighter regions borne on broader wing;
Where lighter gases, circumfused on high,
Form the vast concave of exterior sky;
With airy lens the scattered rays assault,
And bend the twilight round the dusky vault;
Ride, with broad eye and scintillating hair,
The rapid fireball through the midnight air;
Dart from the north on pale electric streams,
Fringing night's sable robe with transient beams.
-Or rein the planets in their swift careers,
Gilding with borrowed light their twinkling spheres ;
Alarm with comet-blaze the sapphire plain,
The wan stars glimmering through its silver train;
Gem the bright zodiac and the glowing pole,

Or give the sun's phlogistic orb to roll."

There is much more in the same strain; indeed, the oration of the goddess runs on to very near the end of the canto, or for above 450 lines more. In its first aspect this singular style of Darwin's is not a little imposing, with its sonorous march and glare of decoration; but its real poverty soon makes itself felt. His far-sought epithets and other novel applications of words are speedily found to be less satisfactory than startling; not unfrequently the effect is something not very far from ludicrous, and at the best the variety proves to be little more than formal, such as might be produced by mere elaboration or trickery. The above passage is rather a favourable specimen of the peculiar sort of splendour in which Darwin deals, made up in great part of glittering words and other ingenuities of diction, it has as much as perhaps any other passage in the poem; and the subject is not so unfavourable as some others that he takes up to that kind of display, nor has it led him into any of his more

adventurous eccentricities.

The conclusion of this address to

the Nymphs of Fire is also very high-wrought: -

"With crest of gold should sultry Sirius glare,
And with his kindling tresses scorch the air;
With points of flame the shafts of summer arm,
And burn the beauties he designs to warm;-
-So erst, when Jove his oath extorted mourned,
And clad in glory to the fair returned;
While Loves at forky bolts their torches light,
And resting lightnings gild the car of night;
His blazing form the dazzled maid admired,
Met with fond lips, and in his arms expired;—
-Nymphs! on light pinions lead your bannered hosts
High o'er the cliffs of Orkney's gulfy coasts;
Leave on your left the red volcanic light
Which Hecla lifts amid the dusky night;

Mark on the right the Dofrine's snow-capt brow,
Where whirling Maelstrome roars and foams below;
Watch with unmoving eye where Cepheus bends
His triple crown, his sceptred hand extends;
Where studs Cassiope with stars unknown
Her golden chair, and gems her sapphire zone;
Where with vast convolution Draco holds
The ecliptic axis in his scaly folds,

O'er half the skies his neck enormous rears,
And with immense meanders parts the Bears;
Onward, the kindred Bears with footsteps rude
Dance round the pole, pursuing and pursued.

"There, in her azure coif and starry stole,
Grey Twilight sits, and rules the slumbering pole;
Bends the pale moonbeams round the sparkling coast,
And strews with livid hands eternal frost.
There, Nymphs! alight, array your dazzling powers,
With sudden march alarm the torpid hours;

On icebuilt isles expand a thousand sails,

Hinge the strong helms, and catch the frozen gales.
The winged rocks to feverish climates guide,
Where fainting zephyrs pant upon the tide;
Pass, where to Ceuta Calpe's thunder roars,
And answering echoes shake the kindred shores;
Pass, where with palmy plumes Canary smiles,
And in her silver girdle binds her isles:
Onward, where Niger's dusky Naiad laves
A thousand kingdoms with prolific waves,
Or leads o'er golden sands her threefold train
In steamy channels to the fervid main;
While swarthy nations crowd the sultry coast,
Drink the fresh breeze, and hail the floating frost ;

VOL. II.

2 B

Nymphs! veiled in mist, the melting treasures steer,
And cool with arctic snows the tropic year.

So, from the burning line by monsoons driven,
Clouds sail in squadrons o'er the darkened heaven;
Wild wastes of sand the gelid gales pervade,

And ocean cools beneath the moving shade.

"Should Solstice, stalking through the sickening bowers,
Suck the warm dewdrops, lap the falling showers;
Kneel with parched lip, and, bending from its brink,

From dripping palm the scanty river drink;
Nymphs! o'er the soil ten thousand points erect,
And high in air the electric flame collect.

Soon shall dark mists with self-attraction shroud
The blazing day, and sail in wilds of cloud;
Each silvery flower the streams aërial quaff,
Bow her sweet head, and infant harvest laugh.
"Thus, when Elijah marked from Carmel's brow
In bright expanse the briny flood below;
Rolled his red eyes amid the scorching air,

Smote his firm breast, and breathed his ardent prayer;
High in the midst a massy altar stood,

And slaughtered offerings pressed the piles of wood ;
While Israel's chiefs the sacred hill surround,
And famished armies crowd the dusty ground;
While proud Idolatry was leagued with dearth,
And withered Famine swept the desert earth :-
'Oh! mighty Lord! thy wo-worn servant hear,
Who calls thy name in agony of prayer;
Thy fanes dishonoured, and thy prophets slain,
Lo! I alone survive of all thy train !—
Oh! send from heaven thy sacred fire, and pour
O'er the parched land the salutary shower ;-
So shall thy priest thy erring flock recall-
And speak in thunder, thou art Lord of all.'
He cried, and, kneeling on the mountain sands,
Stretched high in air his supplicating hands.
Descending flames the dusky shrine illume,
Fire the wet wood, the sacred bull consume;
Winged from the sea, the gathering mists arise,
And floating waters darken all the skies;
The king with shifted reins his chariot bends,
And wide o'er earth the airy flood descends;
With mingling cries dispersing hosts applaud,
And shouting nations own the living God."

A passage from the intermediate part of this address has been made interesting by the progress of discovery since it was written. In a note Darwin expresses his opinion that steam may

probably in time be applied to the rowing of barges, and the moving of carriages along the road;" and he adds, "As the specific levity of air is too great for the support of great burdens by balloons, there seems no probable method of flying conveniently but by the power of steam, or some other explosive material, which another half century may probably discover." The most recent great achievement of steam-power as commemorated in the lines that follow was its application in the apparatus for coining copper erected by Watt for Mr. Boulton at Soho:

"Nymphs! you erewhile on simmering cauldrons played,
And called delighted Savery to your aid ;-

Bade round the youth explosive steam aspire,

In gathering clouds, and winged the wave with fire;
Bade with cold streams the quick expansion stop,
And sunk the immense of vapours to a drop.
Pressed by the ponderous air the piston falls
Resistless, sliding through its iron walls;

Quick moves the balanced beam, of giant birth,
Wields his large limbs, and nodding shakes the earth.
"The giant power from earth's remotest caves
Lifts with strong arm her dark reluctant waves;
Each caverned rock and hidden den explores,
Drags her dark coals, and digs her shining ores.
Next, in close cells of ribbed oak confined,
Gale after gale, he crowds the struggling wind;
The imprisoned storms through brazen nostrils roar,
Fan the white flame, and fuse the sparkling ore.
Here high in air the rising stream he pours
To clay-built cisterns, or to lead-lined towers;
Fresh through a thousand pipes the wave distils,
And thirsty cities drink the exuberant rills.
There the vast millstone, with inebriate whirl,
On trembling floors his forceful fingers twirl,
Whose flinty teeth the golden harvests grind,—
Feast without blood!-and nourish human kind.

"Now his hard hand on Mona's rifled crest,
Bosomed in rock, her azure ores arrest;
With iron lips his rapid rollers seize

The lengthening bars, in thin expansion squeeze;
Descending screws with ponderous flywheels wound
The tawny plates, the new medallions round;
Hard dies of steel the cupreous circles cramp,
And with quick fall his massy hammers stamp.
The harp, the lily, and the lion join,
And George and Britain guard the sterling coin.

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