To the half-wond’ring and half-laughing Lass. With Care parental he the learned Swede From all his folly and Allusion freed; And, when they spake of Stamina and threads, } Nor Wives nor Husbands floated in their Heads; } And flowers were flowers alone, and were not bridal beds. } Polygamy in all its various kind Was never suffer’d to disturb the Mind; Nor could she in a simple Daisy see (Ah, Crime!) superfluous polygamy; 810 In a bright Sunflower she had not the pain To find this same polygamy again; Nor could a Marigold the more approve To find it there was necessary Love. As up the hill and o’er the heath they stray’d, A curious form beside the hawthorn laid. A silvery white its outer surface shone; Its bottom ended in a pointed Cone, One inch in length; and in the broader Space Was the faint picture of an human face— 820 Dead to the Eye, but in the hand a Strife Of waking Nature shew’d the latent Life. “Now tell me, Maiden, from that silver shape, What prison’d Beauty shall from hence escape? Shall a slow Moth the silvery Prison leave, That, when a Worm, she left her food to weave, And slowly flutter in the dying day— The Schoolboy’s Pleasure and the Swallow’s prey? Or shall, with broader Wing and brighter dyes, A soaring Creature from her Coffin rise, 830 Spread to the Morning Sun her glowing Hue Hang o’er the honey’d flower and drink the nectar dew?” Young Emely the pencil’d figure view’d, } And knew the Image that would soon [protrude], } That she with rapture o’er the Hills pursu’d. } “I know her well,” the infant Beauty cried: “The Woodland Glory and the Garden’s pride; I see the Colours o’er her form bespread, The softned brown, faint green and dusky red, And [glowing] eye of [a] bright azure blue 840 On either [angle] of the Wings I view. Beneath, her shading puts all art to Shame; Queen of her race she reigns, and Io is her Name.” Sometimes the Rock within the Quarry gave The Shell that roll’d beneath the Ocean’s wave— Shell now no more: a gradual Change came on, And the thin Shell became the Solid Stone. Yet Shape and Size and Hue and Hinge remain’d, And a Stone-fish the rocky Valves contain’d. This led to Questions from the curious Mind; 850 But who shall Answers to these Questions find? “Such Wonders are,” replied the Sire; “no more I know, my Child; be silent and adore!” Oft would the Lass with either Parent go And hear the wonted Tales of village woe. She saw their bounteous Hand the bliss impart, And they the Gladness of her feeling Heart; Yet Prudence here the various Tale explain’d, The Signs of Grief sincere and Sorrow feign’d. Yet here they own’d how much our rules deceive, 860 And, e’en when wrong, ’tis Kindness to believe. By Preachers guided, by her Parents train’d The favour’d Beauty Grace and Knowledge gain’d;