That great Original by Nature chos'n
To be the Archetype of Human-kind,
Unchangeable, Immortal, with the poles 10
Themselves coaeval, One, yet ev'rywhere,
An image of the god, who gave him Being?
Twin-brother of the Goddess born from Jove,2
He dwells not in his Father's mind, but, though
Of common nature with ourselves, exists
Apart, and occupies a local home.
Whether, companion of the stars, he spend
Eternal ages, roaming at his will
From sphere to sphere the tenfold heav'ns, or dwell
On the moon's side that nearest neighbours Earth,
Or torpid on the banks of Lethe3 sit 20
Among the multitude of souls ordair'd
To flesh and blood, or whether (as may chance)
That vast and giant model of our kind
In some far-distant region of this globe
Sequester'd stalk, with lifted head on high
O'ertow'ring Atlas, on whose shoulders rest
The stars, terrific even to the Gods.
Never the Theban Seer,4 whose blindness proved
His best illumination, Him beheld 30
In secret vision; never him the son
Of Pleione,5 amid the noiseless night
Descending, to the prophet-choir reveal'd;
Him never knew th'Assyrian priest,6 who yet
The ancestry of Ninus7 chronicles,
And Belus, and Osiris far-renown'd;
Nor even Thrice-great Hermes,7 although skill'd