"No! the celestial Author and Creator / In those two volumes of the Book of Nature / Ordained for our instruction, represents, / By multiform but single elements, / One universe of sense, all that we know, / The visible world of instantaneous show / And tangible creation, hard and slow,The last remaining inlet of the mind, / The dreary blank creation of the blind."
— Frere, John Hookham (1769-1846)
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Pickering
Date
1872
Metaphor
"No! the celestial Author and Creator / In those two volumes of the Book of Nature / Ordained for our instruction, represents, / By multiform but single elements, / One universe of sense, all that we know, / The visible world of instantaneous show / And tangible creation, hard and slow,The last remaining inlet of the mind, / The dreary blank creation of the blind."
Metaphor in Context
Is tangible creation more immense,
More multiform than the domain of Light,
That visible creation which the sight
Holds as its empire through the ministry
Of light, its elemental sole ally?
The Almighty Wisdom and Power that could direct,
And with a single element effect
So vast a purpose, shall we dare deny
(What reason teaches and analogy)
That the same Wisdom and Power, working his will
With the like simple means, with the same skill,
In a like form and method might devise
All that a grosser sense can recognize?
No! the celestial Author and Creator
In those two volumes of the Book of Nature
Ordained for our instruction, represents,
By multiform but single elements,
One universe of sense, all that we know,
The visible world of instantaneous show
And tangible creation, hard and slow,
The last remaining inlet of the mind,
The dreary blank creation of the blind.
Nor is it vain what elder bards indite
Of Love self-born, and by inherent might
Emerged from chaos and primeval night.
Was this the form, which idle fancy sings,
With glowing cheeks adorned and glittering wings,
The classic idol and the modern toy,
A torch, a quiver, and a blinded boy?
Was this the sense? or does it represent
Some sovereign and controlling element,
Some impulse unapproachable by thought,
Some force that 'midst the eternal tumult wrought,
And this fair order from confusion brought;
Established motion's substance, form, and weight,
The statutes of this earth's material state?
--Suppose a single element the source
Of all attractive and impelling force,
That motion and cohesion are the extreme
United opposites upon the beam
Of Nature's balance, a magnetic whole,
Single itself, and one; but pole to pole
Contrasted; as the powers of heat and light
Stand each confronted with its opposite
Darkness and cold; not mere negations they,
But negatives with a divided sway,
Pressing--oppressed--advancing--giving way.
Suppose then (as has been supposed before
By wisest men) that in the days of yore
There was a deeper knowledge, and a store
Of science more exalted and sublime,
Whose relics on the barren shore of time
Lie stranded and dispersed, retaining still
Intelligible marks of art and skill,
Of an intended purpose and appliance,
The scanty salvage of a shipwrecked science
Submerged time out of mind! Kepler could draw
From these remains the mighty truth he saw
Of an harmonic, necessary law;
Then with an indefatigable mind
Analogies incessantly combined
With a foreseen conclusion full in view
He worked the problem till he proved it true.
Is there no spirit of a nobler strain,
A Kepler or a Newton once again,
With light upon the chaos to divide,
And fix the mass of knowledge waste and wide;
For as "the crowd of trees conceals the wood,"
With all things known, with nothing understood,
Perplexed with new results from year to year,
As on the puzzled Ptolemaic sphere
With cycles epicycles scribbled o'er,
Like ancient Philomaths we doze and pore:
Thus Ashmole, Lilly, shine in portraiture
(Dear to the calcographic connoisseur);
While the wise nightcap and the Jacob's staff
Awe the beholder and conceal his laugh.
--If we despair then to decypher nature
With our new facts and novel nomenclature:
Those almanacks of science that appear
Framed and adjusted for the current year,
And warranted correct for months to come;
If calculation fails to find the sum
(A formula to comprehend the whole)
Of countless items on the crowded scroll,
Corrected, re-corrected, and replaced,
Obliterated, interlined, effaced,
Blotted and torn in philosophic squabble,
And endless, unintelligible scrabble;
If the huge labyrinth with its winding ways
Entangled in the inextricable maze,
The wilderness of waste experiment,
Has foiled your weary spirits worn and spent,
Since every path is trodden round and tried,
--Trust for a moment a superior guide;
The trembling needle or the stedfast star,
Some point of lofty mark and distant far,
These shall conduct you, whatsoe'er your fate,
At least in a decided path and strait;
Not running round in circles, evermore
Bewildered and bewitched as heretofore:
Like the poor clown that robbed the wizard's store
Breathless and hurrying in his endless race,
With eager action, and a ghastly face,
By subtle magic tether'd to the place.
More multiform than the domain of Light,
That visible creation which the sight
Holds as its empire through the ministry
Of light, its elemental sole ally?
The Almighty Wisdom and Power that could direct,
And with a single element effect
So vast a purpose, shall we dare deny
(What reason teaches and analogy)
That the same Wisdom and Power, working his will
With the like simple means, with the same skill,
In a like form and method might devise
All that a grosser sense can recognize?
No! the celestial Author and Creator
In those two volumes of the Book of Nature
Ordained for our instruction, represents,
By multiform but single elements,
One universe of sense, all that we know,
The visible world of instantaneous show
And tangible creation, hard and slow,
The last remaining inlet of the mind,
The dreary blank creation of the blind.
Nor is it vain what elder bards indite
Of Love self-born, and by inherent might
Emerged from chaos and primeval night.
Was this the form, which idle fancy sings,
With glowing cheeks adorned and glittering wings,
The classic idol and the modern toy,
A torch, a quiver, and a blinded boy?
Was this the sense? or does it represent
Some sovereign and controlling element,
Some impulse unapproachable by thought,
Some force that 'midst the eternal tumult wrought,
And this fair order from confusion brought;
Established motion's substance, form, and weight,
The statutes of this earth's material state?
--Suppose a single element the source
Of all attractive and impelling force,
That motion and cohesion are the extreme
United opposites upon the beam
Of Nature's balance, a magnetic whole,
Single itself, and one; but pole to pole
Contrasted; as the powers of heat and light
Stand each confronted with its opposite
Darkness and cold; not mere negations they,
But negatives with a divided sway,
Pressing--oppressed--advancing--giving way.
Suppose then (as has been supposed before
By wisest men) that in the days of yore
There was a deeper knowledge, and a store
Of science more exalted and sublime,
Whose relics on the barren shore of time
Lie stranded and dispersed, retaining still
Intelligible marks of art and skill,
Of an intended purpose and appliance,
The scanty salvage of a shipwrecked science
Submerged time out of mind! Kepler could draw
From these remains the mighty truth he saw
Of an harmonic, necessary law;
Then with an indefatigable mind
Analogies incessantly combined
With a foreseen conclusion full in view
He worked the problem till he proved it true.
Is there no spirit of a nobler strain,
A Kepler or a Newton once again,
With light upon the chaos to divide,
And fix the mass of knowledge waste and wide;
For as "the crowd of trees conceals the wood,"
With all things known, with nothing understood,
Perplexed with new results from year to year,
As on the puzzled Ptolemaic sphere
With cycles epicycles scribbled o'er,
Like ancient Philomaths we doze and pore:
Thus Ashmole, Lilly, shine in portraiture
(Dear to the calcographic connoisseur);
While the wise nightcap and the Jacob's staff
Awe the beholder and conceal his laugh.
--If we despair then to decypher nature
With our new facts and novel nomenclature:
Those almanacks of science that appear
Framed and adjusted for the current year,
And warranted correct for months to come;
If calculation fails to find the sum
(A formula to comprehend the whole)
Of countless items on the crowded scroll,
Corrected, re-corrected, and replaced,
Obliterated, interlined, effaced,
Blotted and torn in philosophic squabble,
And endless, unintelligible scrabble;
If the huge labyrinth with its winding ways
Entangled in the inextricable maze,
The wilderness of waste experiment,
Has foiled your weary spirits worn and spent,
Since every path is trodden round and tried,
--Trust for a moment a superior guide;
The trembling needle or the stedfast star,
Some point of lofty mark and distant far,
These shall conduct you, whatsoe'er your fate,
At least in a decided path and strait;
Not running round in circles, evermore
Bewildered and bewitched as heretofore:
Like the poor clown that robbed the wizard's store
Breathless and hurrying in his endless race,
With eager action, and a ghastly face,
By subtle magic tether'd to the place.
Categories
Provenance
Searching in HDIS (Poetry)
Citation
Text from John Hookham Frere, Aristophanes, Theognis, Bartle Frere, and William Edward Frere, The Works: In Verse and Prose, 2 vols. (London: Pickering, 1872), I, 284-296.
Date of Entry
06/15/2004
