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OCCASIONED BY SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE'S LATE ILLNESS AND RECOVERY.
WRITTEN IN DECEMBER 1693.
STRANGE to conceive, how the same objects strike
At distant hours the mind with forms so like!
Whether in time, Deduction's broken chain
Meets, and salutes her sister link again;
Or hunted Fancy, by a circling flight,
Comes back with joy to its own seat at night;
Or whether dead Imagination's ghost
Oft hovers where alive it haunted most;
Or if Thought's rolling globe, her circle run,
Turns up old objects to the soul her sun;
Or loves the muse to walk with conscious pride
O'er the glad scene whence first she rose a bride:
Be what it will; late near yon whisp'ring stream,
Where her own Temple was her darling theme;
There first the visionary sound was heard,
When to poetick view the Muse appear'd.
Such seem'd her eyes, as when an evening ray
Gives glad farewell to a tempestuous day;
Weak is the beam to dry up nature's tears,
Still ev'ry tree the pendent sorrow wears;
Such are the smiles where drops of crystal show
Approaching joy at strife with parting woe.
As when to scare th' ungrateful or the proud
Tempests long frown, and thunder threatens loud,
