[Till o'er the wreck. l. 377. The story of the phenix rising from its own ashes with a twinkling star upon its head, seems to have been an antient hieroglyphic emblem of the destruction and resuscitation of all things.
There is a figure of the great Platonic year with a phenix on his hand on the reverse of a medal of Adrian. Spence's Polym. p. 189.]
2. "Lo! on each SEED within its slender rind
Life's golden threads in endless circles wind;
Maze within maze the lucid webs are roll'd,
And, as they burst, the living flame unfold.
385 The pulpy acorn, ere it swells, contains
The Oak's vast branches in its milky veins;
Each ravel'd bud, fine film, and fibre-line
Traced with nice pencil on the small design.
The young Narcissus, in it's bulb compress'd,
390 Cradles a second nestling on its breast;
In whose fine arms a younger embryon lies,
Folds its thin leaves, and shuts its floret-eyes;
Grain within grain successive harvests dwell,
And boundless forests slumber in a shell.
395 —So yon grey precipice, and ivy'd towers,
Long winding meads, and intermingled bowers,
Green files of poplars, o'er the lake that bow,
And glimmering wheel, which rolls and foams below,
In one bright point with nice distinction lie
400 Plan'd on the moving tablet of the eye.
—So, fold on fold, Earth's wavy plains extend,
And, sphere in sphere, its hidden strata bend;—
Incumbent Spring her beamy plumes expands
O'er restless oceans, and impatient lands,
405 With genial lustres warms the mighty ball,
And the GREAT SEED evolves, disclosing ALL;
LIFE buds or breathes from Indus to the Poles,
And the vast surface kindles, as it rolls!
[Maze within maze. l. 383. The elegant appearance on dissection of the young tulip in the bulb was first observed by Mariotte and is mentioned in the note on tulipa in Vol.II, and was afterwards noticed by Du Hamel. Acad. Scien. Lewenhook assures us that in the bud of a currant tree he could not only discover the ligneous part but even the berries themselves, appearing like small grapes. Chamb. Dict. art. Bud. Mr. Baker says he dissected a seed of trembling grass in which a perfect plant appeared with its root, sending forth two branches, from each of which several leaves or blades of grass proceeded. Microsc. Vol. I. p. 252. Mr. Bonnet saw four generations of successive plants in the bulb of a hyacinth. Bonnet Corps Organ. Vol. I. p. 103. Haller's Physiol. Vol. I. p. 91. In the terminal bud of a horse-chesnut the new flower may be seen by the naked eye covered with a mucilaginous down, and the same in the bulb of a narcissus, as I this morning observed in several of them sent me by Miss —— for that purpose. Sept. 16.
Mr. Ferber speaks of the pleasure he received in observing in the buds of Hepatica and pedicularis hirsuta yet lying hid in the earth, and in the gems of the shrub daphne mezereon, and at the base of osmunda lunaria a perfect plant of the future year, discernable in all its parts a year before it comes forth, and in the seeds of nymphea nelumbo the leaves of the plant were seen so distinctly that the author found out by them what plant the seeds belonged to. The same of the seeds of the tulip tree or liriodendum tulipiferum. Amaen. Aced. Vol. VI.]
[And the great seed. l. 406. Alluding to the [Greek: proton oon], or first great egg of the antient philosophy, it had a serpent wrapped round it emblematical of divine wisdom, an image of it was afterwards preserved and worshipped in the temple of Dioscuri, and supposed to represent the egg of Leda. See a print of it in Bryant's Mythology. It was said to have been broken by the horns of the celestial bull, that is, it was hatched by the warmth of the Spring. See note on Canto I. l. 413.]
[And the vast surface. l. 408. L'Organization, le sentiment, le movement spontané, la vie, n'existent qu'a la surface de la terre, et dans le lieux exposes á la lumiére. Traité de Chymie par M. Lavoisier, Tom. I. p. 202.]
3. "Come, YE SOFT SYLPHS! who sport on Latian land,
410 Come, sweet-lip'd Zephyr, and Favonius bland!
Teach the fine SEED, instinct with life, to shoot
On Earth's cold bosom its descending root;
With Pith elastic stretch its rising stem,
Part the twin Lobes, expand the throbbing Gem;
415 Clasp in your airy arms the aspiring Plume,
Fan with your balmy breath its kindling bloom,
Each widening scale and bursting film unfold,
Swell the green cup, and tint the flower with gold;
While in bright veins the silvery Sap ascends,
420 And refluent blood in milky eddies bends;
While, spread in air, the leaves respiring play,
Or drink the golden quintessence of day.
—So from his shell on Delta's shower-less isle
Bursts into life the Monster of the Nile;
425 First in translucent lymph with cobweb-threads
The Brain's fine floating tissue swells, and spreads;
Nerve after nerve the glistening spine descends,
The red Heart dances, the Aorta bends;
Through each new gland the purple current glides,
430 New veins meandering drink the refluent tides;
Edge over edge expands the hardening scale,
And sheaths his slimy skin in silver mail.
—Erewhile, emerging from the brooding sand,
With Tyger-paw He prints the brineless strand,
435 High on the flood with speckled bosom swims,
Helm'd with broad tail, and oar'd with giant limbs;
Rolls his fierce eye-balls, clasps his iron claws,
And champs with gnashing teeth his massy jaws;
Old Nilus sighs along his cane-crown'd shores,
440 And swarthy Memphis trembles and adores.
[Teach the fine seed. l. 411. The seeds in their natural state fall on the surface of the earth, and having absorbed some moisture the root shoots itself downwards into the earth and the plume rises in air. Thus each endeavouring to seek its proper pabulum directed by a vegetable irritability similar to that of the lacteal system and to the lungs in animals.
The pith seems to push up or elongate the bud by its elasticity, like the pith in the callow quills of birds. This medulla Linneus believes to consist of a bundle of fibres, which diverging breaks through the bark yet gelatinous producing the buds.