In naked majesty Oldmixon stands,[329] And, Milo-like, surveys his arms and hands; Then sighing, thus, 'And am I now threescore? Ah why, ye gods! should two and two make four?' He said, and climb'd a stranded lighter's height, Shot to the black abyss, and plunged downright. The senior's judgment all the crowd admire, Who but to sink the deeper, rose the higher. 290 Next Smedley dived;[330] slow circles dimpled o'er The quaking mud, that closed, and oped no more. All look, all sigh, and call on Smedley lost; 'Smedley!' in vain, resounds through all the coast. Then Hill[331] essay'd; scarce vanish'd out of sight, He buoys up instant, and returns to light: He bears no token of the sable streams, And mounts far off among the swans of Thames. True to the bottom, see Concanen creep, A cold, long-winded, native of the deep: 300 If perseverance gain the diver's prize, Not everlasting Blackmore this denies: No noise, no stir, no motion can'st thou make, The unconscious stream sleeps o'er thee like a lake. Next plunged a feeble, but a desperate pack, With each a sickly brother at his back:[332] Sons of a day! just buoyant on the flood, Then number'd with the puppies in the mud. Ask ye their names? I could as soon disclose The names of these blind puppies as of those. 310 Fast by, like Niobe (her children gone) Sits Mother Osborne,[333] stupified to stone! And monumental brass this record bears, 'These are,--ah no! these were, the gazetteers!'[334] Not so bold Arnall;[335] with a weight of skull, Furious he dives, precipitately dull. Whirlpools and storms his circling arm invest, With all the might of gravitation bless'd. No crab more active in the dirty dance, Downward to climb, and backward to advance. 320 He brings up half the bottom on his head, And loudly claims the journals and the lead. The plunging Prelate,[336] and his ponderous Grace, With holy envy gave one layman place. When, lo! a burst of thunder shook the flood, Slow rose a form, in majesty of mud: Shaking the horrors of his sable brows, And each ferocious feature grim with ooze. Greater he looks, and more than mortal stares: Then thus the wonders of the deep declares. 330 First he relates, how sinking to the chin, Smit with his mien, the mud-nymphs suck'd him in: How young Lutetia, softer than the down, Nigrina black, and Merdamante brown, Vied for his love in jetty bowers below, As Hylas fair was ravish'd long ago. Then sung, how, shown him by the nut-brown maids; A branch of Styx here rises from the shades, That, tinctured as it runs with Lethe's streams, And wafting vapours from the land of dreams, 340 (As under seas Alpheus' secret sluice Bears Pisa's offerings to his Arethuse,) Pours into Thames: and hence the mingled wave Intoxicates the pert, and lulls the grave: Here brisker vapours o'er the Temple creep, There, all from Paul's to Aldgate drink and sleep.