The venerable Sage, that nightly trims
The learned lamp, t' investigate the powers
Of plants medicinal, the earth, the air,
And the dark regions of the fossil world,
Grows old in following, what he ne'er shall find;
Studious in vain! till haply, at the last
He spies a mist, then shapes it into mountains,
And baseless fabrics from conjecture builds:
While the domestic animal, that guards
At midnight hours his threshold, if oppress'd
By sudden sickness, at his master's feet
Begs not that aid his services might claim,
But is his own physician, knows the case,
And from th' emetic herbage works his cure.
Hark, far, from afar the feather'd matron screams.
And all her brood alarms, the docile crew
Accept the signal one and all, expert
In th' art of nature and unlearn'd deceit;
Along the sod, in counterfeited death,
Mute, motionless they lie; sull well appriz'd,
That the rapacious adversary's near.
But who inform'd her of th' approaching danger,
Who taught the cautious mother, that the hawk
Was hatch'd her foe, and liv'd by her destruction?
Her own prophetic soul is active in her,
And more than human providence her guard.