Then thick as locusts blackening all the ground, A tribe, with weeds and shells fantastic crown'd, Each with some wondrous gift approach'd the power, A nest, a toad, a fungus, or a flower. 400 But far the foremost, two, with earnest zeal, And aspect ardent, to the throne appeal. The first thus open'd: 'Hear thy suppliant's call, Great queen, and common mother of us all! Fair from its humble bed I rear'd this flower, Suckled, and cheer'd, with air, and sun, and shower; Soft on the paper ruff its leaves I spread, Bright with the gilded button tipp'd its head; Then throned in glass, and named it Caroline:[426] Each maid cried, charming! and each youth, divine! 410 Did Nature's pencil ever blend such rays, Such varied light in one promiscuous blaze? Now prostrate! dead! behold that Caroline: No maid cries, charming! and no youth, divine! And lo, the wretch! whose vile, whose insect lust Laid this gay daughter of the spring in dust. Oh, punish him, or to th' Elysian shades Dismiss my soul, where no carnation fades.' He ceased, and wept. With innocence of mien, Th' accused stood forth, and thus address'd the queen: 420 'Of all th' enamell'd race, whose silvery wing Waves to the tepid zephyrs of the spring, Or swims along the fluid atmosphere, Once brightest shined this child of heat and air. I saw, and started, from its vernal bower, The rising game, and chased from flower to flower; It fled, I follow'd; now in hope, now pain; It stopp'd, I stopp'd; it moved, I moved again. At last it fix'd; 'twas on what plant it pleased, And where it fix'd, the beauteous bird I seized: 430 Rose or carnation was below my care; I meddle, goddess! only in my sphere. I tell the naked fact without disguise, And, to excuse it, need but show the prize; Whose spoils this paper offers to your eye, Fair ev'n in death! this peerless butterfly.' 'My sons! (she answer'd) both have done your parts: Live happy both, and long promote our arts. But hear a mother, when she recommends To your fraternal care our sleeping friends. 440 The common soul, of Heaven's more frugal make, Serves but to keep fools pert and knaves awake: A drowsy watchman, that just gives a knock, And breaks our rest, to tell us what's a clock. Yet by some object every brain is stirr'd; The dull may waken to a humming-bird; The most recluse, discreetly open'd, find Congenial matter in the cockle-kind; The mind in metaphysics at a loss, May wander in a wilderness of moss;[427] 450 The head that turns at super-lunar things, Poised with a tail, may steer on Wilkins' wings.[428] 'Oh! would the sons of men once think their eyes And reason given them but to study flies! See nature in some partial narrow shape, And let the Author of the whole escape: Learn but to trifle; or, who most observe, To wonder at their Maker, not to serve.'