From giant Oaks, that wave their branches dark, To the dwarf Moss, that clings upon their bark, What Beaux and Beauties crowd the gaudy groves, And w… - Erasmus Darwin

So on his Nɪɢʜᴛᴍᴀʀᴇ through the evening fog
Flits the squab Fiend o’er fen, and lake, and bog;
Seeks some love-wilder’d Maid with sleep oppress’d,
Alights, and grinning sits upon her breast.
—Such as of late amid the murky sky
Was mark’d by Fᴜsᴇʟɪ’s poetic eye;
Whose daring tints, with Sʜᴀᴋᴇsᴘᴇᴀʀ’s happiest grace,
Gave to the airy phantom form and place.—
Back o’er her pillow sinks her blushing head,
Her snow-white limbs hang helpless from the bed;
While with quick sighs, and suffocative breath,
Her interrupted heart-pulse swims in death.
—Then shrieks of captured towns, and widows’ tears,
Pale lovers stretch’d upon their blood-stain’d biers,
The headlong precipice that thwarts her flight,
The trackless desert, the cold starless night,
And stern-eye’d Murder with his knife behind,
In dread succession agonize her mind.
O’er her fair limbs convulsive tremors fleet,
Start in her hands, and struggle in her feet;
In vain to scream with quivering lips she tries,
And strains in palsy’d lids her tremulous eyes;
In vain she wills to run, fly, swim, walk, creep;
The Wɪʟʟ presides not in the bower of Sʟᴇᴇᴘ.
—On her fair bosom sits the Demon-Ape
Erect, and balances his bloated shape;
Rolls in their marble orbs his Gorgon-eyes,
And drinks with leathern ears her tender cries.

For if we may compare infinities, it would seem to require a greater infinity of power to cause the causes of effects, than to cause the effects themselves. This idea is analogous to the improving excellence observable in every part of the creation; such as in the progressive increase of the solid or habitable parts of the earth from water; and in the progressive increase of the wisdom and happiness of its inhabitants; and is consonant to the idea of our present situation being a state of probation, which by our exertion we may improve, and are consequently responsible for our actions.

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.