Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appear'd, And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard: To carry nature lengths unknown before, To give a Milton birth, ask'… - William Cowper

Thou wast a bauble once; a cup and ball,
Which babes might play with; and the thievish jay
Seeking her food, with ease might have purloined
The auburn nut that held thee, swallowing down
Thy yet close-folded latitude of boughs
And all thine embryo vastness at a gulp.
But fate thy growth decreed.

Those golden times And those Arcadian scenes that Maro sings, And Sidney, warbler of poetic prose.

The earth was made so various, that the mind Of desultory man, studious of change And pleased with novelty, might be indulged.