A POEM Sacred to the MEMORY of Sir ISAAC NEWTON. 

Inscrib'd to the RIGHT HONOURABLE Sir ROBERT WALPOLE. 

SHALL the great Soul of Newton quit this earth,
 To mingle with his stars; and every muse,
 Astonish'd into silence, shun the weight
 Of honours due to his illustrious name? 
But what can man? — Even now the sons of light,
 In strains high-warbled to seraphic lyre,
 Hail his arrival on the coast of bliss. 
Yet am not I deterr'd, tho' high the theme,
 And sung to harps of angels, for with you,
 Ethereal Flames! ambitious, I aspire
 In Nature's general symphony to joyn. 

And what new wonders can ye show your guest! 
Who, while on this dim spot, where mortals toil
 Clouded in dust, from Motion's simple laws,
 Could trace the secret hand of Providence,
 Wide-working thro' this universal frame. 

Have ye not listen'd while he bound the Suns,
 And Planets to their spheres! th' unequal task
 Of human kind till then. Oft had they roll'd
 O'er erring Man the year, and oft disgrac'd
 The pride of schools, before their course was known
 Full in its causes and effects to him,
 All-piercing sage! who sat not down and dream'd
 Romantic schemes, defended by the din
 Of specious words, and tyranny of names;
 But, bidding his amazing mind attend,
 And with heroic patience years on years
 Deep-searching, saw at last the System dawn,
 And shine, of all his race, on him alone. 

What were his raptures then! how pure! how strong! 
And what the triumphs of old Greece and Rome,
 By his diminish'd, but the price of boys
 In some small fray victorious! when instead
 Of shatter'd parcels of this earth usurp'd
 By violence unmanly, and sore deeds
 Of cruelty and Blood, Nature herself
 Stood all subdu'd by him, and open laid
 Her every latent glory to his view. 

All intellectual eye, our solar Round
 First gazing thro', he by the blended power
 Of Gravitation and Projection saw
 The whole in silent harmony revolve. 
From unassisted vision hid, the Moons
 To chear remoter planets numerous pour'd,
 By him in all their mingled tracts were seen. 
He also fix'd the wandering Queen of Night,
 Whether she wanes into a scanty orb,
 Or, waxing broad, with her pale shadowy light,
 In a soft deluge overflows the sky. 
Her every motion clear-discerning, He
 Adjusted to the mutual Main, and taught
 Why now the mighty mass of water swells
 Resistless, heaving on the broken rocks
 And the full river turning; till again
 The tide revertive, unattracted, leaves
 A yellow waste of idle sands behind. 

Then breaking hence, he took his ardent flight
 Thro' the blue Infinite; and every Star,
 Which the clear concave of a winter's night
 Pours on the eye, or astronomic tube,
 Far-stretching, snatches from the dark abyss,
 Or such as farther in successive skies
 To fancy shine alone, at his approach
 Blaz'd into Suns, the living centre each
 Of an harmonious system: all combin'd,
 And rul'd unerring by that single power,
 Which draws the stone projected to the ground. 

O unprofuse magnificence divine! 
O Wisdom truly perfect! thus to call
 From a few causes such a scheme of things,
 Effects so various, beautiful, and great,
 An universe compleat! and, O belov'd
 Of heaven! whose well-purg'd penetrative eye,
 The mystic veil transpiercing, inly scann'd
 The rising, moving, wide-establish'd frame. 

He, first of men, with awful wing pursu'd
 The Comet thro' the long Eliptic curve,
 As round innumerous worlds he wound his way;
 Till, to the forehead of our evening sky
 Return'd, the blazing wonder glares anew,
 And o'er the trembling nations shakes dismay. 

The heavens are all his own; from the wild rule
 Of whirling Vortices, and circling Spheres,
 To their first great simplicity restor'd. 
The schools astonish'd stood; but found it vain
 To keep at odds with demonstration strong,
 And, unawaken'd, dream beneath the blaze
 Of truth. At once their pleasing visions sled,
 With the gay shadows of the morning mix'd,
 When Newton rose, our philosophie sun. 

Th' aerial flow of Sound was known to him,
 From whence it first in wavy circles breaks,
 Till the touch'd organ takes the meaning in. 
Nor could the darting Beam, of speed immense,
 Escape his swift pursuit, and measuring eye. 
Even Light itself, which every things displays,
 Shone undiscover'd, till his brighter mind
 Untwisted all the shining robe of day;
 And, from the whitening undistinguish'd blaze,
 Collecting every ray into his kind,
 To the charm'd eye educ'd the gorgeous train
 Of Parent-Colours. First the flaming Red
 Sprung vivid forth; the tawny Orange next;
 And next delicious Yellow; by whose side
 Fell the kind beams of all-refreshing Green. 
Then the pure Blue, that swells autumnal skies,
 Ethereal play'd; and then, of sadder hue,
 Emerg'd the deepen'd Indico, as when
 The heavy-skirted evening droops with frost. 
While the last gleamings of refracted light
 Dy'd in the fainting Violet away. 

These, when the clouds distil the rosy shower,
 Shine out distinct adown the watry bow;
 While o'er our heads the dewy vision bends
 Delightful, melting on the fields beneath. 
Myriads of mingling dies from these result,
 And myriads still remain — Infinite source
 Of beauty, ever-flushing, ever-new! 

Did ever poet image ought so fair,
 Dreaming in whispering groves, by the hoarse brook! 
Or prophet, to whose rapture heaven descends! 
Even now the setting sun and shifting clouds,
 Seen, Greenwich, from thy lovely heights, declare
 How just, how beauteous the refractive Law. 

The noiseless Tide of Time, all bearing down
 To vast Eternity's unbounded sea
 Where the green islands of the happy shine,
 He stemm'd alone; and to the source (involv'd
 Deep in primaeval gloom) ascending, rais'd
 His lights at equal distances, to guide
 Historian, wilder'd on his darksome way. 

But who can number up his labours? who
 His high discoveries sing? when but a few
 Of the deep-studying race can stretch their minds
 To what he knew: in fancy's lighter thought,
 How shall the muse then grasp the mighty theme? 

What wonder thence that his Devotion swell'd
 Responsive to his knowledge! for could he,
 Whose piercing mental eye diffusive saw
 The finish'd University of things,
 In all its order, magnitude, and parts,
 Forbear incessant to adore that Power
 Who fills, sustains, and actuates the whole. 

Say, ye who best can tell, ye happy few,
 Who saw him in the softest lights of life,
 All un-with-held, indulging to his friends
 The vast unborrow'd treasures of his mind,
 Oh speak the wondrous man! how mild, how calm,
 How greatly humble, how divinely good;
 How firm establish'd on eternal truth;
 Fervent in doing well, with every nerve
 Still pressing on, forgetful of the past,
 And panting for perfection: far above
 Those little cares, and visionary joys,
 That so perplex the fond impassion'd heart
 Of ever-cheated, ever-trusting man. 
This, Conduit, from thy rural hours we hope;
 As thro' the pleasing shade, where Nature pours
 Her every sweet, in studious ease you walk;
 The social passions smiling at thy heart,
 That glows with all the recollected sage. 

And you, ye hopeless gloomy-minded tribe,
 You who, unconscious of those nobler flights
 That reach impatient at immortal life,
 Against the prime endearing pivilege
 Of Being dare contend, say, can a soul
 Of such extensive, deep, tremendous powers,
 Enlarging still, be but a finer breath
 Of spirits dancing thro' their tubes awhile,
 And then for ever lost in vacant air? 

But hark! methinks I hear a warning voice,
 Solemn as when some awful change is come,
 Sound thro' the world — "'Tis done! — The measure's full;
" And I resign my charge. — Ye mouldering stones,
 That build the towering pyramid, the proud
 Triumphal arch, the monument effac'd
 By ruthless ruin, and whate'er supports
 The worshipp'd name of hoar antiquity,
 Down to the dust! what grandeur can ye boast
 While Newton lifts his column to the skies,
 Beyond the waste of time — Let no weak drop
 Be shed for him. The virgin in her bloom
 Cut off, the joyous youth, and darling child,
 These are the tombs that claim the tender tear,
 And Elegiac song. But Newton calls
 For other notes of gratulation high,
 That now he wanders thro' those endless worlds
 He here so well descried, and wondering talks,
 And hymns their author with his glad compeers. 

O Britain's boast! whether with angels thou
 Sittest in dread discourse, or fellow-blest,
 Who joy to see the honour of their kind;
 Or whether, mounted on cherubic wing,
 Thy swift career is with the whirling orbs,
 Comparing things with things, in rapture lost,
 And grateful adoration, for that light
 So plenteous ray'd into thy mind below,
 From Light Himself; Oh look with pity down
 On human-kind, a frail erroneous race! 
Exalt the spirit of a downward world! 
O'er thy dejected country chief preside,
 And be her Genius call'd! her studies raise,
 Correct her manners, and inspire her youth. 
For, tho' deprav'd and sunk, she brought thee forth,
 And glories in thy name; she points thee out
 To all her sons, and bids them eye thy star:
 While in expectance of the second life,
 When Time shall be no more, thy sacred dust
 Sleeps with her kings, and dignifies the scene.