By thee inspired, his tube the Tuscan plies, And sends new colonies to stock the skies, Gives Jove his satellites, and first adorns Effulgent Phosphor with his silver horns. Herschel ascends himself with venturous wain, And joins and flanks thy planetary train, Perceives his distance from their elder spheres, And guards with numerous moons the lonely round he steers. Yes, bright Copernicus, thy beams, far hurl'd, Shall startle well this intellectual world, Break the delusive dreams of ancient lore, New floods of light on every subject pour, Thro Physic Nature many a winding trace, And seat the Moral on her sister's base. Descartes with force gigantic toils alone, Unshrines old errors and propounds his own; Like a blind Samson, gropes their strong abodes, Whelms deep in dust their temples and their gods, Buries himself with those false codes they drew, And makes his followers frame and fix the true. Bacon, with every power of genius fraught, Spreads over worlds his mantling wings of thought, Draws in firm lines, and tells in nervous tone All that is yet and all that shall be known, Withes Proteus Matter in his arms of might, And drags her tortuous secrets forth to light, Bids men their unproved systems all forgo, Informs them what to learn, and how to know, Waves the first flambeau thro the night that veils Egyptian fables and Phenician tales, Strips from all-plundering Greece the cloak she wore, And shows the blunders of her borrow'd lore. One vast creation, lately borne abroad, Cheers the young nations like a nurturing God, Breathes thro them all the same wide-searching soul. Forms, feeds, refines and animates the whole, Guards every ground they gain, and forward brings Glad Science soaring on cerulean wings, Trims her gay plumes, directs her upward course, Props her light pinions and sustains her force, Instructs all men her golden gifts to prize, And catch new glories from her beamful eyes,-- Tis the prolific Press; whose tablet, fraught By graphic Genius with his painted thought, Flings forth by millions the prodigious birth, And in a moment stocks the astonish'd earth. Genius, enamor'd of his fruitful bride, Assumes new force and elevates his pride. No more, recumbent o'er his finger'd style, He plods whole years each copy to compile, Leaves to ludibrious winds the priceless page, Or to chance fires the treasure of an age; But bold and buoyant, with his sister Fame, He strides o'er earth, holds high his ardent flame, Calls up Discovery with her tube and scroll, And points the trembling magnet to the pole. Hence the brave Lusitanians stretch the sail, Scorn guiding stars, and tame the midsea gale; And hence thy prow deprest the boreal wain, Rear'd adverse heavens, a second earth to gain, Ran down old Night, her western curtain thirl'd, And snatch'd from swaddling shades an infant world.