3. "Come, YE SOFT SYLPHS! who sport on Latian land, 410 Come, sweet-lip'd Zephyr, and Favonius bland! Teach the fine SEED, instinct with life, to shoot On Earth's cold bosom its descending root; With Pith elastic stretch its rising stem, Part the twin Lobes, expand the throbbing Gem; 415 Clasp in your airy arms the aspiring Plume, Fan with your balmy breath its kindling bloom, Each widening scale and bursting film unfold, Swell the green cup, and tint the flower with gold; While in bright veins the silvery Sap ascends, 420 And refluent blood in milky eddies bends; While, spread in air, the leaves respiring play, Or drink the golden quintessence of day. --So from his shell on Delta's shower-less isle Bursts into life the Monster of the Nile; 425 First in translucent lymph with cobweb-threads The Brain's fine floating tissue swells, and spreads; Nerve after nerve the glistening spine descends, The red Heart dances, the Aorta bends; Through each new gland the purple current glides, 430 New veins meandering drink the refluent tides; Edge over edge expands the hardening scale, And sheaths his slimy skin in silver mail. --Erewhile, emerging from the brooding sand, With Tyger-paw He prints the brineless strand, 435 High on the flood with speckled bosom swims, Helm'd with broad tail, and oar'd with giant limbs; Rolls his fierce eye-balls, clasps his iron claws, And champs with gnashing teeth his massy jaws; Old Nilus sighs along his cane-crown'd shores, 440 And swarthy Memphis trembles and adores. [_Teach the fine seed_. l. 411. The seeds in their natural state fall on the surface of the earth, and having absorbed some moisture the root shoots itself downwards into the earth and the plume rises in air. Thus each endeavouring to seek its proper pabulum directed by a vegetable irritability similar to that of the lacteal system and to the lungs in animals. The pith seems to push up or elongate the bud by its elasticity, like the pith in the callow quills of birds. This medulla Linneus believes to consist of a bundle of fibres, which diverging breaks through the bark yet gelatinous producing the buds.