obligations, divine, civil, moral, or rational. To these her adepts she sends priests, attendants, and comforters, of various kinds; confers on them orders and degrees; and then dismissing them with a speech, confirming to each his privileges, and telling what she expects from each, concludes with a yawn of extraordinary virtue: the progress and effects whereof on all orders of men, and the consummation of all, in the restoration of Night and Chaos, conclude the poem. Yet, yet a moment, one dim ray of light Indulge, dread Chaos, and eternal Night! Of darkness visible so much be lent, As half to show, half veil the deep intent. Ye Powers! whose mysteries restored I sing, To whom Time bears me on his rapid wing, Suspend a while your force inertly strong, Then take at once the poet and the song. Now flamed the dog-star's unpropitious ray, Smote every brain, and wither'd every bay; 10 Sick was the sun, the owl forsook his bower, The moon-struck prophet felt the madding hour: Then rose the seed of Chaos, and of Night, To blot out order, and extinguish light, Of dull and venal a new world to mould, And bring Saturnian days of lead and gold. She mounts the throne: her head a cloud conceal'd, In broad effulgence all below reveal'd, ('Tis thus aspiring Dulness ever shines), Soft on her lap her laureate son reclines. 20 Beneath her foot-stool, Science groans in chains, And Wit dreads exile, penalties and pains. There foam'd rebellious Logic, gagg'd and bound, There, stripp'd, fair Rhetoric languish'd on the ground; His blunted arms by Sophistry are borne, And shameless Billingsgate her robes adorn. Morality, by her false guardians drawn. Chicane in furs, and Casuistry in lawn, Gasps, as they straiten at each end the cord, And dies, when Dulness gives her page the word. 30 Mad Mathesis[380] alone was unconfined, Too mad for mere material chains to bind, Now to pure space[381] lifts her ecstatic stare, Now running round the circle, finds it square.[382] But held in tenfold bonds the Muses lie, Watch'd both by Envy's and by Flattery's eye: There to her heart sad Tragedy address'd The dagger wont to pierce the tyrant's breast; But sober History restrain'd her rage, And promised vengeance on a barbarous age. 40 There sunk Thalia, nerveless, cold, and dead, Had not her sister Satire held her head: Nor could'st thou, Chesterfield![383] a tear refuse, Thou wept'st, and with thee wept each gentle Muse. When, lo! a harlot form[384] soft sliding by, With mincing step, small voice, and languid eye: Foreign her air, her robe's discordant pride In patchwork fluttering, and her head aside: By singing peers upheld on either hand, She tripp'd and laugh'd, too pretty much to stand; 50 Cast on the prostrate Nine a scornful look, Then thus in quaint recitative spoke: