CANTO IV.
As when at noon in Hybla's fragrant bowers
CACALIA opens all her honey'd flowers;
Contending swarms on bending branches cling,
And nations hover on aurelian wing;
5 So round the GODDESS, ere she speaks, on high
Impatient SYLPHS in gawdy circlets fly;
Quivering in air their painted plumes expand,
And coloured shadows dance upon the land.
[Cacalia opens. l. 2. The importance of the nectarium or honey-gland in the vegetable economy is seen from the very complicated apparatus, which nature has formed in some flowers for the preservation of their honey from insects, as in the aconites or monkshoods; in other plants instead of a great apparatus for its protection a greater secretion of it is produced that thence a part may be spared to the depredation of insects. The cacalia suaveolens produces so much honey that on some days it may be smelt at a great distance from the plant. I remember once counting on one of these plants besides bees of various kinds without number, above two hundred painted butterflies, which gave it the beautiful appearance of being covered with additional flowers.]
I. "SYLPHS! YOUR light troops the tropic Winds confine,
10 And guide their streaming arrows to the Line;
While in warm floods ecliptic breezes rise,
And sink with wings benumb'd in colder skies.
You bid Monsoons on Indian seas reside,
And veer, as moves the sun, their airy tide;
15 While southern gales o'er western oceans roll,
And Eurus steals his ice-winds from the Pole.
Your playful trains, on sultry islands born,
Turn on fantastic toe at eve and morn;
With soft susurrant voice alternate sweep
20 Earth's green pavilions and encircling deep.
OR in itinerant cohorts, borne sublime
On tides of ether, float from clime to clime;
O'er waving Autumn bend your airy ring,
Or waft the fragrant bosom of the Spring.
[The tropic winds. l. 9. See additional notes, No. XXXIII.]
25 II. "When Morn, escorted by the dancing Hours,
O'er the bright plains her dewy lustre showers;
Till from her sable chariot Eve serene
Drops the dark curtain o'er the brilliant scene;
You form with chemic hands the airy surge,
30 Mix with broad vans, with shadowy tridents urge.
SYLPHS! from each sun-bright leaf, that twinkling shakes
O'er Earth's green lap, or shoots amid her lakes,
Your playful bands with simpering lips invite,
And wed the enamour'd OXYGENE to LIGHT.—
35 Round their white necks with fingers interwove,
Cling the fond Pair with unabating love;
Hand link'd in hand on buoyant step they rise,
And soar and glisten in unclouded skies.
Whence in bright floods the VITAL AIR expands,
40 And with concentric spheres involves the lands;
Pervades the swarming seas, and heaving earths,
Where teeming Nature broods her myriad births;
Fills the fine lungs of all that breathe or bud,
Warms the new heart, and dyes the gushing blood;
45 With Life's first spark inspires the organic frame,
And, as it wastes, renews the subtile flame.
[The enamour'd oxygene. l. 34. The common air of the atmosphere appears by the analysis of Dr. Priestley and other philosophers to consist of about three parts of an elastic fluid unfit for respiration or combustion, called azote by the French school, and about one fourth of pure vital air fit for the support of animal life and of combustion, called oxygene. The principal source of the azote is probably from the decomposition of all vegetable and animal matters by putrefaction and combustion; the principal source of vital air or oxygene is perhaps from the decomposition of water in the organs of vegetables by means of the sun's light. The difficulty of injecting vegetable vessels seems to shew that their perspirative pores are much less than those of animals, and that the water which constitutes their perspiration is so divided at the time of its exclusion that by means of the sun's light it becomes decomposed, the inflammable air or hydrogene, which is one of its constituent parts, being retained to form the oil, resin, wax, honey, &c. of the vegetable economy; and the other part, which united with light or heat becomes vital air or oxygene gas, rises into the atmosphere and replenishes it with the food of life.
Dr. Priestley has evinced by very ingenious experiments that the blood gives out phlogiston, and receives vital air, or oxygene-gas by the lungs. And Dr. Crawford has shewn that the blood acquires heat from this vital air in respiration. There is however still a something more subtil than heat, which must be obtained in respiration from the vital air, a something which life can not exist a few minutes without, which seems necessary to the vegetable as well as to the animal world, and which as no organized vessels can confine it, requires perpetually to be renewed. See note on Canto I. l. 401.]
"So pure, so soft, with sweet attraction shone
Fair PSYCHE, kneeling at the ethereal throne;
Won with coy smiles the admiring court of Jove,
50 And warm'd the bosom of unconquer'd LOVE.—
Beneath a moving shade of fruits and flowers
Onward they march to HYMEN'S sacred bowers;
With lifted torch he lights the festive train,
Sublime, and leads them in his golden chain;
55 Joins the fond pair, indulgent to their vows,
And hides with mystic veil their blushing brows.
Round their fair forms their mingling arms they fling,
Meet with warm lip, and clasp with rustling wing.—
—Hence plastic Nature, as Oblivion whelms
60 Her fading forms, repeoples all her realms;
Soft Joys disport on purple plumes unfurl'd,
And Love and Beauty rule the willing world.
[Fair Psyche. l. 48. Described from an antient gem on a fine onyx in possession of the Duke of Marlborough, of which there is a beautiful print in Bryant's Mythol. Vol II. p. 392. And from another antient gem of Cupid and Psyche embracing, of which there is a print in Spence's Polymetis. p. 82.]