The Providence Journal, And Town And Country Advertiser

SELECTED POETRY.

From the Asiatic Museum,

LOVES OF THE TRIANGLES.

Mathematical and Philosophical Poem.--Inscribed to Dr. Darwin,

[Continued from our last.]

INS--black and huge! who in DomDaniel's cave
Writhe your scorch'd limbs on sulphur's azure wave,
Or, Shivering, yell amidst eternal snows.
Where cloud-capp'd Caf protrudes his granite toes;

go
Bound by his will, Judea's fabled King,
(Lord of Aladdin's lamp and magic ring)
Gins! ye remember, for your toil convey'd
Whate'er of drugs the powerful charm could aid;
In earth, and sea ye search'd, and where below
Flame embryo lavas, young volcanoes glow.--
Gins! ye beheld appall'd th' Enchanter's hand
Wave in dark air th' Hypothenusal wand;
Saw him the mystic Circe trace, and wheel
With head erect, and far extended heel;
100
Saw him, with speed that mock'd the dazzled eye,
Self whirl'd, "in quick gyrations eddying fly:"
Till done the potent spell---behold him grown
Fair Venus' emblem---the Phænician Cone.
Triumphs the Seer, and now secure believes
105
The kindling passion of the Rival Curves.
And first, the fair Parabola behold,
Her timid arms, with virgin blush, unfold!
Though on one focus fix'd, her eyes betray
A heart that glows with Love's restless sway;
110
Though, climbing oft, she strive with bolder grace
Round his tall neck to clasp her fond embrace,
Still ere she reach it, from his polish'd side
Her trembling hands in devious tangents glide.
Not thus Hyperbola---with subtler art
115
The blue ey'd wanton plays her changeful part;
Quick as her conjugated axes move
Through every posture of luxurious love.
Her portive limbs with easiest grace expand:
Her charms unveil'd provoke the lover's hand;.
120
Unveil'd, except on many a filmy ray,
Where light Asymptotes o'er her bosom play,
Nor touch her glowing skin, nor intercept the day.
Yet why, Ellipsis, at thy fate repine?
More lasting bliss, securer joys are thine.
125
Though to each fair his treach'rous wit may stray,
Though each, in turn, may seize a transient sway,
'Tis thine with mild coercion to restrain,
Twine round his struggling heart, and bind with endless chain.
Thus, happy France! in thy regenerate land,
130
Where Taste with Rapine wantons hand in hand;
Where, nurs'd in feats of innocence and bliss,
Reform greets Terror with fraternal kiss;
Where mild Philosophy first taught to scan
The wrongs of Providence, and rights of Man;
135
Where Memory broods o'er Freedom's earliest scene,
The Lantern bright, and brighter Guillotine;---
L. 87. Gins.] The Eastern name for Genii.-
Vide Tales of ditto.
L. 87. Dom Daniel.] A submarine place near
Tunis, where Zatanai usually held his court.-Vide
New Arabian Nights.
L. 88. Sulphur.] A substance which, when
cold, reflects the yellow rays, and is therefore said
to be yellow. When raised to a temperature at which
it attracts oxygene (a process usually called burn-
ing) it emits a blue flame. This may be beautifully
exemplified, and at a moderate expence, by igniting
those fasciculi of brimstone matches, frequently sold,
(so frequently indeed as to form one of the London
cries) by women of an advanced age, in this metro-
polis. They will be found to yield an azure or
Blue light.
: 4t ys 1j
L. 90. Caf.] The Indian Caucasus. Vide
Bailly's Lettres sur l' Atlantide, in which he proves
that this was the native country of Gog and Magog,
(now resident in Guildhall) as well as of the Peris,
or Fairies. of the Asiatic romances.
L. 91. Judea's fabled King.] Mr. Higgins
does not mean to deny that Solomon was really King
of Judea. The epithet fabled, applies to that empire
over the Genii, which the retrospective generosity of
the Arabian fabulists has bestowed upon this monarch.
L. 96. Young volcanoes.] The genesis of burn-
ing mountains was never, till lately, well explained.
Those with which we are best acquainted are certainly
not viviparous; it is therefore probable, that there ex-
ists, in the centre of the earth, a considerable reservoir
of their eggs, which during the obstetrical convulsions
of general earthquakes, produce new volcanoes.
L. 100. Far extended heel.] The personifica-
tion of Triangle, besides answering a poetical purpose,
was necessary to illustrate Mr. Higgins' philosophi-
cal opinions. The ancient mathematicians conceived
that a Cone was generated by the revolution of a
Triangle: but this, as our author justly observes,
would be impossible, without supposing in the Trian-
gle that expansive nidus, discovered by Blumenbach,
and improved by Darwin, which is peculiar to anima-
ted matter, and which alone explains the whole mys-
tery of organization. Our enchanter sits on the
ground with his heel stretched out, his head erect.
his wand (or Hypothenuse) resting on the extremities
of his feet and the tip of his nose (as is finely ex-
pressed in the engraving in the original work) and
revolves upon his bottom with great velocity. His
skin, by magical means, has acquired an indefinite
power of expansion, as well as that of assimilating to
itself all the azote of the air, which he decomposes by
expiration from his lungs-an immense quantity, and
which, in our present unimproved and uneconomical
mode of breathing, is quite thrown away: by this
simple process the transformation is very naturally
accounted for.
L.104. Phænician Cone.] It was under this
Shape that Venus was worshipped in Phœnicia. Mr.
Higgins thinks it was the Venus Urania, or celestial
Venus; in allusion to which, he supposes that the
Phœnician grocers first introduced the practice of
preserving sugar loaves in blue or sky-coloured paper:
—he also believes that the conical forms of the ori-
ginal grenadiers' caps was typical of the loves of
Mars and Venus.
L. 107. Parabola.] The curve described by pro-
jectiles of all sorts, as bombs, shuttle cocks, &c.
L. 115. Hyperbola.] Not figuratively speak-
ing, as in rhetoric, but mathematically: and there-
fore blue-eyed.
L. 120. Asymptotes.] "Lines which, though
they may approach still nearer together, till they
are nearer than the least assignable distance, yet, be-
ing still produced infinitely, will never meet."—John-
son's Dictionary.
L. 124. Ellipsis.] A curve, the revolution of
which on its axis produces an Ellipsoid, or solid re-
sembling the eggs of birds, particularly those of the
gallinaceous tribe. Ellipsis is the only curve that em-
braces the Cone.
Three gentle swains evoive their longing arms,
And woo the young Republic's virgin charms;
And though proud Barras with the fair succeed.
Though not in vain th' Attorney Rewbell plead,
Oft doth th' impartial Nymph their love forego,
To clasp thy crooked shoulders, blest Lepeaux!
So, with dark dirge athwart the blasted heath,
Three Sister Witches hail'd appall'd Macbeth.
145
So, the Three Fates, beneath grim Pluto's roof
Strain the dun warp, and weave the murky woof;
Till deadly Atropos with fatal sheers
Slits the thin primate of th' expected years.
While 'midst the dungeon's gloom or battle's din,
150
Ambition's victims perish, as they spin.
Thus, the Three Graces on th' Idalian green,
Bow with soft homage to Cytherea's Queen;
Her polish'd arms with pearly bracelets deck,
Part her light locks, and bare her ivory neck;
155
Round her fair form ethereal odours throw,
And teach th' unconscious Zephyrs where to blow;
Floats the thin Gauzé, and, glittering as they play,
The bright folds wanton in phlogistic day.
So, with his Daughters Three, th' unceptred Lear
Heav'd the loud sigh, and pour'd the glistering tear;
His Daughters Three. save one alone, conspire
(Rich in his gift) to spurn their generous sire;
Bid the rude storm his hoary trees drench,
Stint the poor meal, the hundred knights retrench;
165
Mock his mad sorrow, and with alter'd mien
Renounce the Daughter and assert the Queen.
A father's griefs his feeble frame convulse,
Rack his white head, and fire his feverous pulse;
Till kind Cordelia sooths his soul to rest,
170
And folds the parent monarch to her breast.
Thus some fair spinster grieves in wild affright,
Vex'd with dull megrim, or vertigo light;
Pleas'd round the fair Three dawdling Doctors stand,
Wave the white wig, and stretch the asking hand.
175
State the grave doubt---the nauseous draught decree,
And all receive, though none deserve, a fee.
So down thy hill, romantic Ashbourn, glides
The Derby Dilly, carrying Three Insides;
One in each corner sits, and lolls at ease
180
With folded arms, propt back, and outstretch'd knees;
While the press'd Bodkin, punch'd and squeez'd to death,
Sweats in the midmost place, and pants for breath.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]