To drink with their dejected Head
The Stream just so as by their Mouths it fled:
No, but those few who took the Waters up,
And made of their laborious Hands the Cup.
VII.
Their wondrous Pattern too you take:
Their old and empty Pitchers first they brake,
And with their Hands then lifted up the Light.
Iö! Sound too the Trumpets here!
Already your victorious Lights appear;
New Scenes of Heaven already we espy,
And Crowds of golden Worlds on high;
Which from the spacious Plains of Earth and Sea,
Could never yet discover'd be
By Sailors or Chaldæans watchful Eye.
Nature's great Works no Distance can obscure,
No smalness her near Objects can secure.
You've taught the curious Sight to press
Into the privatest Recess
Of her imperceptible Littleness.
She with much stranger Art than his who put
All th' Iliads in a Nut,
The numerous Work of Life does into Atoms shut.
You've learn'd to read her smallest Hand,
And well begun her deepest Sense to understand.
VIII.
Who would to Laughter or to Scorn expose
So virtuous and so noble a Design,
So Human for its Use, for Knowledge so Divine.
The Things which these proud Men despise, and call
Impertinent, and vain, and small,
