Page:The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell (1833).djvu/216

He saw old mother Earth arise,
She stood confess'd before his eyes;
But not with what we read she wore,
A castle for a crown before,
Nor with long streets and longer roads
Dangling behind her, like commodes;
As yet with wreaths alone she drest,
And trail'd a landskip-painted vest.
Then thrice she rais'd, as Ovid said,
And thrice she bow'd her weighty head.

Her honours made, great Jove, she cried,
This thing was fashion'd from my side;
His hands, his heart, his head, are mine;
Then what hast thou to call him thine?

Nay rather ask, the monarch said,
What boots his hand, his heart, his head,
Were what I gave removed away?
Thy part's an idle shape of clay.

Halves, more than halves! cried honest Care,
Your pleas would make your titles fair,
You claim the body, you the soul,
But I who join'd them, claim the whole.

Thus with the gods debate began,
On such a trivial cause, as man.
And can celestial tempers rage?
Quoth Virgil in a later age.