Keeping the tablets and decrees
Of Jove, and the ephemerides
Of the gods, and calendars,

Of the ever festal stars;

Say, who was he, the sunless shade,

After whose pattern man was made ;
He first, the full of

ages,

born

With the old pale polar morn,

Monumenta servans, et ratas leges Jovis,
Cælique fastos, atque ephemeridas Deûm !
Quis ille primus, cujus ex imagine
Natura solers finxit humanum genus,
Æternus, incorruptus, æquævus polo,

Sole, yet all ; first visible thought,
After which the Deity wrought ?
Twin-birth with Pallas, not remain

Doth he in Jove's o'ershadow'd brain ;

But though of wide communion,
Dwells apart, like one alone ;
And fills the wondering embrace,
(Doubt it not) of size and place.
Whether, companion of the stars,
With their ten-fold round he errs;

Unusque et universus, exemplar Dei ?
Haud ille Palladis gemellus innubæ
Interna proles insidet menti Jovis ;
Sed quamlibet natura sit communior,
Tamen seorsùs extat ad morem unius,

Et, mira, certo stringitur spatio loci :
Seu sempiternus ille siderum comes
Cæli pererrat ordines decemplicis;

Or inhabits with his lone

Nature in the neighbouring moon;
Or sits with body-waiting souls,
Dozing by the Lethæan pools :
Or whether, haply, placed afar
In some blank region of our star,
He stalks, an unsubstantial heap,
Humanity's giant archetype ;
Where a loftier bulk he rears

Than Atlas, grappler of the stars,
And through their shadow-touched abodes
Brings a terror to the gods.

Citimúmve terris incolit lunæ globum ;
Sive, inter animas corpus adituras sedens,
Obliviosas torpet ad Lethes aquas :
Sive in remotâ fortè terrarum plaga
Incedit ingens hominis archetypus gigas,
Et diis tremendus erigit celsum caput,
Atlante major portitore siderum.

Not the seer of him had sight,
Who found in darkness depths of light;
His travelled eyeballs saw him not
In all his mighty gulphs of thought :
Him the farthest-footed god,
Pleiad Mercury, never shewed
To any poet's wisest sight
In the silence of the night :
News of him the Assyrian priest

Found not in his sacred list,

Non, cui profundum cæcitas lumen dedit,

Dircæus

augur

vidit hunc alto sinu;

Non hunc silente nocte Plëiones nepos

Vatum sagaci præpes ostendit choro;
Non hunc sacerdos novit Assyrius, licèt

Though he traced back old king Nine,
And Belus, elder name divine,
And Osiris, endless famed.
Not the glory, triple-named,
Thrice great Hermes, though his eyes
Read the shapes of all the skies,

Left him in his sacred verse

Revealed to Nature's worshippers.

O Plato! and was this a dream

Of thine in bowery Academe ?

;

Longos vetusti commemoret atavos Nini,
Priscumque Belon, inclytumque Osiridem
Non ille, trino gloriosus nomine,
Ter magnus Hermes, ut sit arcani sciens,
Talem reliquit Isidis cultoribus.

At tu, perenne ruris Academi decus,