But I go farther in the case. Pray listen while I tell A thing which lately fell From one of truly royal race.[4] A prince beloved by Victory, The North's defender here shall be My voucher and your guaranty; Whose mighty name alone Commands the sultan's throne, The king whom Poland calls her own. This king declares (kings cannot lie, we hear) That, on his own frontier, Some animals there are; Engaged in ceaseless war; From age to age the quarrel runs, Transmitted down from sires to sons; (These beasts, he says, are to the fox akin;) And with more skill no war hath been, By highest military powers, Conducted in this age of ours Guards, piquets, scouts, and spies, And ambuscade that hidden lies, The foe to capture by surprise, And many a shrewd appliance Of that pernicious, cursed science, The daughter of the Stygian wave, And mother harsh of heroes brave, Those military creatures have. To chant their feats a bard we lack, Till Death shall give us Homer back. And should he such a wonder do, And, while his hand was in, release Old Epicurus' rival[5] too, What would the latter say to facts like these? Why, as I've said, that nature does such things In animals by means of springs; That Memory is but corporeal; And that to do the things array'd So proudly in my story all, The animal but needs her aid. At each return, the object, so to speak, Proceeds directly to her store With keenest optics--there to seek The image it had traced before, Which found, proceeds forthwith to act Just as at first it did, in fact, By neither thought nor reason back'd. Not so with us, beasts perpendicular; With us kind Heaven is more particular. Self-ruled by independent mind, We're not the sport of objects blind, Nor e'en to instinct are consign'd. I walk; I talk; I feel the sway Of power within This nice machine, It cannot but obey. This power, although with matter link'd, Is comprehended as distinct. Indeed 'tis comprehended better In truth and essence than is matter. O'er all our arts it is supreme. But how doth matter understand Or hear its sovereign lord's command? Here doth a difficulty seem: I see the tool obey the hand; But then the hand who guideth it; Who guides the stars in order fit? Perhaps each mighty world, Since from its Maker hurl'd, Some angel may have kept in custody. However that may be, A spirit dwells in such as we; It moves our limbs; we feel its mandates now; We see and know it rules, but know not how: Nor shall we know, indeed, Till in the breast of God we read. And, speaking in all verity,