MAKES Nature maps? since that in thee She's drawn an university: Or strives she in so small a piece To sum the arts and sciences? Once she writ only text-hand, when She scribbled giants and no men: But now in her decrepid years She dashes dwarfs in characters, And makes one single farthing bear The Creed, Commandments, and Lord's Prayer. Would she turn Art, and imitate Monte-regio's flying gnat? Would she the Golden Legend shut Within the cloister of a nut; Or else a musket bullet rear Into a vast and mighty sphere? Or pen an eagle in the caul Of a slender nightingale; Or show, she pigmies can create Not too little but too great? How comes it that she thus converts So small a @3totum@1 and great parts? Strives she now to turn awry The quick scent of philosophy? How, so little matter can So monstrous big a form contain; What shall we call (it would be known) This giant and this dwarf in one? His age is blabb'd by silver hairs, His limbs still cry out want of years; So small a body in a cage May chuse a spacious hermitage; So great a soul doth fret and fume At th' narrow world for want of room. Strange conjunction! here is grown A molehill and the Alps in one; In th' selfsame action we may call Nature both thrift and prodigal. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...GOOD-BYE DOROTHY GAYLE: THE ROAD TO BUFFALO by KAREN SWENSON THE SIFTING OF PETER by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW SONG OF SEID NIMETOLLAH OF KUHISTAN by AMIR NURU'D-DIN NI'MATU'LLAH BILL'S LENGTH by ALEXANDER ANDERSON DIRGE AND HYMENAL by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES THE THREE SAD SHEPPARDESSES, GOE TO A LITTLE TABLE, WHERE THEY SINGE by ELIZABETH BRACKLEY |