Thoughts on the Newtonian Philosophy, addressed to the Marchioness du Châtelet.
Emilia, whose deep genius all admire,
You like a muse my laboring breast inspire;
I wake at your command, I dream no more,
But virtue's laws and nature's paths explore.
Melpomene, the theatre I quit,
No more I idolize a crowded pit:
Let Rufus, son of earth, in hobbling verse,
To life's last verge a foolish thought express,
And aim at me the darts which he designed
To level at the rest of human kind.
Four times a month the Zoilus of the age,
May pour in fierce invective senseless rage;
Their cries by hatred formed I will not hear,
Nor mind their tracks which in the dirt appear:
Divine philosophy's all powerful charms,
Fell envy of her darts with ease disarms;
Wrapt in his heaven, great Newton scarcely knows
Amongst the sons of men that he has foes:
Of mine I think not, to my ravished eyes,
Truth shows how I may to that heaven rise;
Those vortices which run so strange a race,
Heaped without order, moving without space.
Those learned visions pass like smoke away,
Motion's restored, I see a brighter day,
74
