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Show ORIGIN OF SOCIETY. CANTO IV. " Immortal Happiness from realms dec.eased Wakes, as from sleep, unlessen' d or increased; Calls to the wise in accents loud and clear' Sooths with sweet tones the sympathetic ear; Informs and fires the revivescent clay' And lights the dawn of Life's returning day. " So when Arabia's Bird, by age oppress' d, Consumes delighted on his spicy nest; A filial Phrenix from his ashes springs, Crown'd with a star, on renovated wings; Ascends exulting from his funeral flame, And soars and shines, another and the same. 410 And lights the dmvn, I. 410. The sum total of t~1e. h.appiness of orO'anize<.l nature is probably increased rather than duntmshed, when on~ large old animal dies,' and is converted into many thousand young ones; which are pro?uced or supp.orted with their numerous progeny by the same orgamc matter. Lmneus asserts, that three of the flies, called musca vomitoria, will consume the bouy of a dead horse as soon as a lion can; Syst. Nat. So' •when Arabia's bird, 1. 411. The story of the Phccnix rising from its own ashes with a star upon its head seems to have been an hieroglyphic emblem of the destruction and resuscitation of all things; see Botan. Garden, Vol. I. Canto IV. 1. 389. CANTO IV. OF GOOD AND EVIL. " So erst the Sage with scientific truth In Grecian temples taught the attentive youth; With ceaseless change how restless atoms pass Fron1 life to life, a transmigrating mass; How the same organs, which to day compose The poisonous henbane, or the fragrant rose, May with to morrow's s~n new forms compile, ~rown in the Hero, in the Beauty smile. Whence drew the enJighten'd Sage the moral plan, That man should ever be the friend of man· ' Should eye with tenderness all living forms, His brother-einmets, and his sister-worms. " HEAR, 0 ye Sons of Time! your final doom, 420 And read the characters, that mark your tomb: 430 So erst the Sage. 1. 417. It is probable, that the perpetual transmigration of matter from one body to another, of all vegetables and animals, during their lives, as well as after their deaths, was observed by Pythagoras ; which he afterwards applied to the sou.l, or spir~t of animation, and taught, that it passed from one animal to another as |
