Erasmus Darwin Poems

The busy birds, with nice selection, cull
Soft thistle-down, gray moss, and scatter'd wool;
Far from each prying eye the nest prepare,
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Descend, ye hovering Sylphs! aerial Quires,
And sweep with little hands your silver lyres;
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Roll on, ye starts! exult in youthful prime,
Mark with bright curves the printless steps of time;
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AND NOW THE GODDESS with attention sweet
Turns to the GNOMES, that circle round her feet;
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Now stood Eliza on the wood-crowned height,
O'er Minden's plain, spectatress of the fight;
Sought, with bold eye, amid the bloody strife,
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STAY YOUR RUDE STEPS! whose throbbing breasts infold
The legion-fiends of Glory, or of Gold!
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As when at noon in Hybla's fragrant bowers
CACALIA opens all her honey'd flowers;
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Where Sydney Cove her lucid bosom swells,
And with wide arms the indignant storm repels;
High on a rock amid the troubled air
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AGAIN the GODDESS speaks!-glad Echo swells
The tuneful tones along her shadowy dells,
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Now the broad Sun his golden orb unshrouds,
Flames in the west, and paints the parted clouds;
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