Tessel'd with diamond, gold, and purple gems CLXVII. Here, see a gorgeous temple, yet more gay- CLXVIII. Ruby, and emerald-green, intensely bright, Of graceful form and elegance, that human tongue Or deep where better suited to their place— CLXIX. The splendid walls that bound this temple-court 1 These descriptions are taken from a department of Nature, not very often, we believe, explored. The petals, and other parts of many small, and even common, flowers, when dissected, and properly magnified, exhibit an extraordinary degree of beauty, quite surprising. Imagination may easily convert them into magnificent dwellings, palaces, courts, or gardens, and wander through them with delight. Ornate with purest gold, and dappled o'er A source of pure delight-unfading as themselves. CLXX. Let not ill-judging mortals, on our earth, Of high behest, from the Great Source of all; For glad obedience animates the soul, And TRUTH, pure Love, and Joy, for ever reign. CLXXI. Oh, that we might for ever wander here, CLXXII. E'en the despised pauper, and the bard, Who, while on earth, oft shiver'd as he wrote, A palace like a king-or rather, like No earthly king; for palaces on earth, "Where moth and rust corrupt," grow old and dull, CLXXIII. Thy mandate come? Celestial spirit, thanks- "A wall on either side"-these, all around- CLXXIV. Byron, thy mission is fulfil'd in this, And half of thy great promise is perform'd. 1 Supposing, with Sir Wm. Herschel, the spots on the sun's disc to be excavations in his luminous atmosphere, the appearance to a spectator standing on the surface of the sun, near the centre of a small spot, would be something like the above description. The moiety to come-may never come; But, should thy living scribe survive the wreck CLXXV. Now our swift upward flight through op'ning clouds, And that bright ring of overwhelming light, Drowns the weak mortal sense with its excess. A balmy slumber weighs our eyelids down, Soothing the weary vision to repose. Once more on earth, the Muse would rest her wing. Our spirit-friend, departed to his home, We only dream of heav'n, and cease to sing. THE END OF CANTO VI. 400 APPENDIX TO CANTO VI. See Stanza 156, and Note. NOTE (A.) THAT rotatory motion is a universal law of Nature, there seems to be no doubt. All the planets revolve, our sun revolves, and we know that many of the stars have rotatary motion. Some important purpose, of course, is effected by it. But, the Rev. T. Milner, in his "Gallery of Nature," p. 55, says: "The end accomplished by the sun having a motion of rotation upon his axis, is inscrutable to us." Now, how is the end accomplished by it inscrutable? Is not rotatory motion the cause of all the centrifugal force in the universe? If the sun's rotation on his axis were to cease, what would be the consequence? If our earth ceased to revolve on its axis, would not the moon, in a short time, be more intimately acquainted with us? The Rev. T. Milner tells us himself that this would happen, and states the time in which the moon would quit its orbit and fall to the earth -"In less than five days." Of the planet Mercury, he says: "If loosened from the centrifugal force, it would require more than a fortnight to accomplish its dash headlong into the sun. Mercury's distance from the sun is 37,000,000 of miles. The Rev. T. Milner also gives the time in which the other planets would fall into the sun, if not kept in their orbits by the centrifugal force, which, at their respective distances, exactly counteracts the sun's attractive power, which attraction prevents its antagonist from carrying off the planet to a greater distance. .The cause of rotatory motion is more inscrutable than the end so evidently accomplished by it; but even that cause, the author conceives, may be accounted for in the way already suggested. |