Page:Ovid's Metamorphoses (Vol. 2) - tr Garth, Dryden, et. al. (1727).djvu/276

For this eternal World is said, of old,
But four prolifick Principles to hold,
Four different Bodies, two to Heav'n ascend,
And other two down to the Center tend:
Fire first with Wings expanded mounts on high,
Pure, void of Weight, and dwells in upper Sky;
Then Air, because unclog'd in empty Space,
Flies after Fire, and claims the second Place:
But weighty Water, as her Nature guides,
Lies on the lap of Earth, and Mother Earth subsides.
All things are mix'd of these, which all contain,
And into these are all resolv'd again:
Earth rarifies to Dew; expanded more,
The subtil Dew in Air begins to soar;
Spreads, as she flies, and weary of her Name
Extenuates still, and changes into Flame;
Thus having by degrees Perfection won,
Restless they soon untwist the Web, they spun,
And Fire begins to lose her radiant Hue,
Mix'd with gross Air, and Air descends to Dew;
And Dew condensing, does her Form forego,
And sinks, a heavy lump of Earth, below.
Thus are their Figures never at a stand,
But chang'd by Nature's innovating Hand;
All things are alter'd, nothing is destroy'd,
The shifted Scene for some new Show employ'd.
Then, to be born, is to begin to be
Some other Thing we were not formerly:
And what we call to die, is not t' appear,
Or be the Thing, that formerly we were.
Those very Elements, which we partake
Alive, when dead some other Bodies make:
Translated grow, have Sense, or can Discourse;
But Death on deathless Substance has no Force.
That Forms are chang'd, I grant; that nothing can
Continue in the Figure it began:

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