Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 3.djvu/96

92 Its vigour spreads, and makes the teeming earth Heave up, and labour with the sprouting birth: The active spirit freedom seeks in vain, It only works and twists a stronger chain. Urging its prison's sides to break a way, It makes that wider, where 'tis forc’d to stay; Till, having form'd its living house, it rears Its head, and in a tender plant appears. Hence springs the oak, the beauty of the grove, Whose stately trunk fierce storms can scarcely move. Hence grows the cedar, hence the swelling vine Does round the elm its purple clusters twine. Hence painted flowers the smiling gardens bless, Both with their fragrant scent and gaudy dress. Hence the white lily in full beauty grows, Hence the blue violet, and blushing rose. He sung how sun-beams brood upon the earth, And in the glebe hatch such a numerous birth; Which way the genial warmth in Summer storms Turns putrid vapours to a bed of worms; How rain, transform’d by this prolifick power, Falls from the clouds an animated shower. He sung the embryo’s growth within the womb, And how the parts their various shapes assume. With what rare art the wonderous structure’s wrought, From one crude mass to such perfection brought; That no part useless, none misplac’d we see, None are forgot, and more would monstrous be.