I.
In Nature's endless Treasury,
They chose his Eye to entertain
(His curious but not covetous Eye)
With painted Scenes, and Pageants of the Brain.
Some few exalted Spirits this latter Age has shown,
That labour'd to assert the Liberty
(From Guardians, who were now Usurpers grown)
Of this Old Minor still, captiv'd Philosophy;
But 'twas Rebellion call'd to fight
For such a long-oppressed Right.
Bacon at last, a mighty Man, arose,
Whom a wise King and Nature chose
Lord Chancellor of both their Laws,
And boldly undertook the injur'd Pupils Cause.
III.
Come, enter, all that will,
Behold the ripened Fruit, come gather now your Fill.
Yet still, methinks, we fain would be
Catching at the forbidden Tree,
We would be like the Deity.
When Truth and Falshood, Good and Evil, we
Without the Senses Aid within ourselves would see;
For 'tis God only who can find
All Nature in his Mind.
IV.
In Desarts but of small Extent,
Bacon, like Moses, led us forth at last,
The barren Wilderness he past,
Did on the very Border stand
Of the blest promis'd Land,
And from the Mountain's Top of his exalted Wit,
Saw it himself, and shew'd us it.
But Life did never to one Man allow
Time to discover Words, and Conquer too;
Nor can so short a Line sufficient be
To fathom the vast Depth of Nature's Sea:
The work he did we ought t' admire,
And were unjust if we should more require
From his few Years, divided 'twixt th' Excess
Of low Affliction and high Happiness:
For who on Things remote can fix his Sight,
That's always in a Triumph, or a Fight?
VI.
To drink with their dejected Head
The Stream just so as by their Mouths it fled:
No, but those few who took the Waters up,
And made of their laborious Hands the Cup.
VII.
Those smallest Things of Nature let me know,
Rather than all their greatest Actions do.
Whoever would deposed Truth advance
Into the Throne usurp'd from it,
Must feel at first the Blows of Ignorance,
And the sharp Points of envious Wit,
So when by various turns of the Celestial Dance,
In many thousand Years
A Star, so long unknown, appears,
Though Heaven it self more beauteous by it grow,
It troubles and alarms the World below,
Does to the Wife a Star to Fools a Meteor show.
IX.