Lines on Fontenelle
Muse! if thou canst, this picture’s truth excel;
Strive to pourtray the soul of Fontenelle:
Him, to whose works, with wit and judgment warm,
Indulgent Nature, gave a magic charm.—
’Twas his to strew with flowers the toilsome road,
Which leads to Science in her dark abode;
And while he touch’d the pastoral reed, to prove,
That courtly pomp, must yield to rural love.
A Lucian rising from the silent tomb,
’Twas his, to pierce through Error’s doubtful gloom;
And, with resistless eye, at once to dart
Full on the hidden secrets of the heart.—
Union divine!—in Fontenelle we find
A glowing genius, and a gentle mind!