Volume 1

The temple of nature or, the origin of society. A poem with philosophical notes / By Erasmus Darwin.

  • Erasmus Darwin
Date:
1803
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The temple of nature or, the origin of society. A poem with philosophical notes / By Erasmus Darwin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    21/322 page 9
    While chain’d reluctant on the marble ground, Indignant 'TiME reclines; by Sculpture bound; 80 And sternly bending o’er a scroll unroll’d, Inscribes the future with his style of gold. —So erst, when Prorevus on the briny shore, New forms assum’d of eagle, pard, or boar; The wise ArripEs bound in sea-weed thongs The changeful god amid his scaly throngs; Till in deep tones his opening lips at last Reluctant told the future and the past. HERE over piazza’d courts, and long arcades, The bowers of Preasure root their waving shades; 90 Shed o’er the pansied moss a checker'd gloom, Bend with new fruits, with flow’rs successive bloom. So erst, when Proteus, 1. 83. It seems probable that Proteus was the name of a hieroglyphic figure representing Time; whose form was perpetually changing, and who could discover the past events of the world, and predict the future. Herodotus does not doubt but that Proteus was an Egyptian king or deity; and Orpheus calls him _ the principle of all things, and the most ancient of the gods; and adds, that he keeps the keys of Nature, Danet’s Dict. all which might well accord with a figure representing Time. C
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