Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray and Smollett

On the Death of Stephen Grey, F.R.S.

The Electrician

Long hast thou borne the burden of the day;
  Thy task is ended, venerable Grey!
  No more shall Art thy dexterous hand require,
  To break the sleep of elemental fire;
  To rouse the power that actuates Nature’s frame,
  The momentaneous shock, the electric flame;
  The flame which first, weak pupil to thy lore,
  I saw, condemn’d, alas! to see no more.

Now, hoary sage! pursue thy happy flight;
  With swifter motion, haste to purer light,
  Where Bacon waits, with Newton and with Boyle,
  To hail thy genius and applaud thy toil;
  Where intuition breathes through time and space,
  And mocks Experiment’s successive race;
  Sees tardy Science toil at Nature’s laws,
  And wonders how the effect obscures the cause.

Yet not to deep research or happy guess,
  Is show’d the life of hope, the death of peace;
  Unbless’d the man whom philosophic rage
  Shall tempt to lose the Christian in the Sage:
  Not Art, but Goodness, pour’d the sacred ray
  That cheer’d the parting hours of humble Grey.