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Show 44 ORIGIN OF SOCIETY. CANTO II. When Time's cold hands the languid senses seize, Chill the dull nerves, the lingering currents freeze; Organic matter, unreclaim'd by Life·, Reverts to elements by chemic strife. Thus Heat evolv'd from some fermenting n1ass Expands the kindling atoms in to gas; Which sink ere long in cold concentric rings, Condensed, on Gravity's descending wings. " But REPRODUCTION with ethereal fires · . 10 CAN TO I! . REPUODUCTION OF LIFE. " Self-moving Engines by unbending springs May ' valk on earth, or flap their mimic wings; In tubes of glass mercurial columns rise, · Or sink, obedient to the incumbent skies; Or, as they touch the figured scale, repeat The nice gradations of circumfluent heat. But REPRODUCTION, when the perfect Elf Forms from fine glands another like itself, Gives the true character of life and sense, And parts the organic from the chen1ic Ens.- New Life rekindles, ere the first expires; Where milder skies protect the nascent brood, Calls up renascent Y-outh, ere tottering age And earth's warm bosom yields salubrious food; Quits the dull scene, and gives him to the stage; Each new Descendant with superior powers Bids on his cheek the rose of beauty blow, Of sense and motion speeds the transient hours; And binds the wreaths of pleasure round his brow; Braves every season, tenants every clime, With finer links the vital chain extends, And Nature rises on the wings of Time. And the long line of Being never ends. 20 by others, except the young broods, who were defended by their mother; and hence the animal world existed uniformly in its greatest strength and perfection; see Additional Note VII . .But Reproduction, l. 13. See Additional Note VIII. '' As LrFE discordant elements arrests, Rejects the noxious, and the pure digests; Unbending springs, I. ~1. See Additional Note I. 4. 45 30 |