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Show [ t64 ] Round their white necks with fingers interwove, Cling the fond Pa:ir with unabating love; Hand link' d in hand on buoyant ftep they rife) And [oar and glifien in unclouded fk.ies. Whence in bright floods the VITAL AIR expands, And with concentric fpheres involves the lands;. 40. Pervades the [warming feas, 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 gufuing blood·; .. fource of vital ai-r or oxygene is perhaps from the decompofition of water in the organs of vegetables by means of the fun's light. The difficu1ty of injechng vegetable velfels feems to {hew that their perfpirative pores are much lefs than thofe of animals, anq that the water which conftitutes their perfpiration is fo divided at the time of its exclufion, that by means of the fun's light it becomes decnmpofed, the inflammable i-r or hydrogene, which is one of its confl:ituent parts, being retained to form the oil, refm, wax, honey, &c. of. the vegetable economy; and the other part, which united with light or heat becomes vital air or oxygene gas, rifes into the atmufphere ::tnd rc-plenifhes it with the food of life. Dr. Priefl:ley has evinced by very 1ngenious experiments that the blood gives out· phlogifton, and receives vi tal air, or oxygene-gas by the lungs. And Dr. Crawford has {hewn that the blood acquires heat from this vital air in refpiration. There is however !till a fomething more fubtil than heat, which muft be obtained in refpiration from the vital air, a fomething which life can not exift a few minutes without, \vhich feems necdfary to the vegetable as well as to the animal world, and which, as no organized veffels can confine it, reqHires perpetually to be renewed. See note on Canto 1~ . I. 401. [ 165 ] With Life's firfi fpark infpires the organic frame, And, as it wafies, renews the fubtile flame. " So pure, fo foft, with fweet attra8:ion fhone Fair PsYCHE, kneeling at the ethereal throne ; Won with coy fmiles the admiring court of Jove, And warm'd the bofom of unconquer'd LovE.Beneath a n1oving iliadc of fruits and flowers Onward they march to HYMEN's facred · bowers; With lifted torch he lights the feftive train, Sublime, and leads thetn in. his golden chain ; Joins the fond pair, indulgent to their vows, 55· And hides with myfiic veil their blufhing brows .. Round their fair forms their mingli g arms they fling, Meet with warm lip, and clafp with rufiling wing.- Fair Pjyche. 1. 48. Defrribed from an antient gem on a fine onyx in polfeffion 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 Pfyche embracing, of which there is a print in Spence's Polymetis. p. 82. |
