Fair Cʜᴜɴᴅᴀ smiles amid the burning waste, Her brow unturban’d, and her zone unbrac’d; Ten brother-youths with light umbrella’s shade, Or fan with bu… - Erasmus Darwin

Would it be too bold to imagine that, in the great length of time since the earth began to exist, perhaps millions of ages before the commencement of the history of mankind would it be too bold to imagine that all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament, which the great First Cause endued with animality, with the power of acquiring new parts, attended with new propensities, directed by irritations, sensations, volitions and associations, and thus possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering down these improvements by generation to its posterity, world without end!

The Pʀᴏᴛᴇᴜs-ʟᴏᴠᴇʀ woos his playful bride,
To win the fair he tries a thousand forms, Basks on the sands, or gambols in the storms.
A Dolphin now, his scaly sides he laves,
And bears the sportive damsel on the waves;
She strikes the cymbal as he moves along,
And wondering Ocean listens to the song.
—And now a spotted Pard the lover stalks,
Plays round her steps, and guards her favour’d walks;
As with white teeth he prints her hand, caress’d, And lays his velvet paw upon her breast,
O’er his round face her snowy fingers strain
The silken knots, and fit the ribbon-rein.
—And now a Swan, he spreads his plumy sails,
And proudly glides before the fanning gales;
Pleas’d on the flowery brink with graceful hand
She waves her floating lover to the land;
Bright shines his sinuous neck, with crimson beak
He prints fond kisses on her glowing cheek,
Spreads his broad wings, elates his ebon crest,
And clasps the beauty to his downy breast.

Roll on, ʏᴇ Sᴛᴀʀs! exult in youthful prime,
Mark with bright curves the printless steps of Time;
Near and more near your beamy cars approach,
And lessening orbs on lessening orbs encroach;—
Flowers of the sky! ye too to age must yield,
Frail as your silken sisters of the field!
Star after star from Heaven's high arch shall rush,
Suns sink on suns, and systems systems crush,
Headlong, extinct, to one dark centre fall,
And Death and Night and Chaos mingle all!
—Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm,
Immortal Nᴀᴛᴜʀᴇ lifts her changeful form,
Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame,And soars and shines, another and the same.