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Touch it, it shrinks. What! without form or shape?
Hold, grasp it firmly ; let it not escape,
View it, 'tis magic sure, be not dismay'd,
Nothing is seen without or light or shade.
Nothing deaf, hears; dumb, speaks; or wingless flies
Walks without legs or feet, sees without eyes;
Nothing can wander thro' the fields of space
Without a change of its respective place,
Nothing can greater benefits impart
To suffering mortals than the healing art.
Let not the anxious youth who has felt the pow'r
Of shafts Idalian in a luckless hour,
Reek by enchanted circles to assuage
The ardent fires that in his bosom rage;
Nor pluck the verdure of the Dictæan sward,
Nor magic try, nor wizard's art abhorr'd.
Nothing has charms around, below, above,
To soothe the torments of despairing love.
Nothing recalls to life from shades below
Him who o'er Styx' sad wave is forced to go.
Nothing can bend the inflexible decree
Of murky Orcus' stubborn Majesty,
Or fatal web unravel, or avoid
The dart by which all human is destroyed.
The giant offspring of Titanian sires
Weltering, engulph'd in Phlœgeroeian fires,
Confess,—too late their sentence to remove,
Nothing more potent than the bolts of Jove!
The Gods fear Nothing. Nothing doth extend
Beyond the world's remotest, farthest end.
But why should I my lengthn'd verse prolong,
And, singing nothing, thus dilate my song?
Nothing doth greater excellence bespeak
Than blush of virtue, mantling on the cheek.
Nothing superior to Heav'n's Monarch reigns,
Who calms the deep, and raging storm restrains.
But cease elaborate trifles to pursue,
And exquisite distinctions to renew!
Lest if my verse with self applause resound,
And ring my plaudits with a weary round,
Indignant censure may attend my lay
From Nothing too; so nothing more I say.
Printed at The Star Office, Sturt Street, Ballarat.
