Or hunts without, till ready limbs it find, And actuates those according to their kind; From tenement to tenement is tossed; The soul is still the same, the figure only lost: And as the softened wax new seals receives, This face assumes, and that impression leaves; Now called by one, now by another name, The form is only changed, the wax is still the same: So death, so called, can but the form deface; } The immortal soul flies out in empty space, } To seek her fortune in some other place. } Then let not piety be put to flight, To please the taste of glutton appetite; But suffer inmate souls secure to dwell, Lest from their seats your parents you expel; With rabid hunger feed upon your kind, Or from a beast dislodge a brother's mind. And since, like Tiphys, parting from the shore, In ample seas I sail, and depths untried before, This let me further add, that nature knows No stedfast station, but, or ebbs, or flows; Ever in motion, she destroys her old, And casts new figures in another mould. Even times are in perpetual flux, and run, Like rivers from their fountain, rolling on. For time, no more than streams, is at a stay; The flying hour is ever on her way; And as the fountain still supplies her store, The wave behind impels the wave before, Thus in successive course the minutes run, And urge their predecessor minutes on, Still moving, ever new; for former things Are set aside, like abdicated kings; And every moment alters what is done, And innovates some act till then unknown. Darkness, we see, emerges into light, And shining suns descend to sable night; Even heaven itself receives another die, When wearied animals in slumbers lie Of midnight ease; another, when the gray Of morn preludes the splendour of the day. The disk of Phœbus, when he climbs on high, Appears at first but as a bloodshot eye; And when his chariot downward drives to bed, His ball is with the same suffusion red; But, mounted high in his meridian race, All bright he shines, and with a better face; For there, pure particles of æther flow, Far from the infection of the world below. Nor equal light the unequal moon adorns, Or in her wexing, or her waning horns; For, every day she wanes, her face is less, But, gathering into globe, she fattens at increase. Perceiv'st thou not the process of the year, } How the four seasons in four forms appear, } Resembling human life in every shape they wear? } Spring first, like infancy, shoots out her head, } With milky juice requiring to be fed; } Helpless, though fresh, and wanting to be led. } The green stem grows in stature and in size, But only feeds with hope the farmer's eyes;