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...THE COCK AND THE FOX, OR THE TALE OF THE NUN'S PRIEST by GEOFFREY CHAUCER HIPPOLYTUS TEMPORIZES by HILDA DOOLITTLE SEA POPPIES by HILDA DOOLITTLE PAST AND PRESENT by ROWLAND EYLES EGERTON-WARBURTON A FAREWELL TO FOLLY: CONTENT by ROBERT GREENE ON THE DEATH OF JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE by FITZ-GREENE HALLECK HYMN TO THE NIGHT by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW |