Away, fond dupes! who smit with sacred lore, Mosaic dreams in Genesis explore, Dote with Copernicus, or darkling stray With Newton, Ptolemy, or Tycho Brahe: To you I sing not, for I sing of truth, Primæval systems, and creation's youth; Such as of old, with magic wisdom fraught, Inspired Lucretius to the Latians taught. I sing how casual bricks, in airy climb, Encounter'd casual horse-hair, casual lime; How rafters borne through wondering clouds elate, Kiss'd in their slope blue elemental slate, Clasp'd solid beams in chance-directed fury, And gave to birth our renovated Drury. Thee, son of Jove, whose sceptre was confessed, Where fair OEolia springs from Tethys' breast: Thence on Olympus 'mid Celestials placed, God of the winds, and Ether's boundless waste, Thee I invoke! Oh, _puff_ my bold design, Prompt the bright thought, and swell the harmonious line; Uphold my pinions, and my verse inspire With Winsor's patent gas, or wind of fire, In whose pure blaze thy embryo form enroll'd, The dark enlightens, and enchafes the cold. But while I court thy gifts, be mine to shun The deprecated prize Ulysses won; Who sailing homeward from thy breezy shore, The prison'd winds in skins of parchment bore:-- Speeds the fleet bark, till o'er the billowy green The azure heights of Ithaca are seen; But while with favouring gales her way she wins, His curious comrades ope the mystic skins: When lo! the rescued winds, with boisterous sweep, Roar to the clouds, and lash the rocking deep; Heaves the smote vessel in the howling blast, Splits the stretch'd sail, and cracks the tottering mast. Launch'd on a plank, the buoyant hero rides Where ebon Afric stems the sable tides, While his duck'd comrades o'er the ocean fly, And sleep not in the whole skins they untie. So when to raise the wind some lawyer tries, Mysterious skins of parchment meet our eyes. On speed the smiling suit, "Pleas of our Lord The King" shine jetty on the wide record: Nods the prunella'd bar, attornies smile, And siren jurors flatter to beguile; Till stript--nonsuited--he is doom'd to toss In legal shipwreck, and redeemless loss; Lucky, if, like Ulysses, he can keep His head above the waters of the deep.