With virgin earth, of woods and bones and shells;
Mould with retractile glue their spongy beds,
And stretch and strengthen all their fibre-threads.--
Late when the mass obeys its changeful doom,
570 And sinks to earth, its cradle and its tomb,
GNOMES! with nice eye the slow solution watch,
With fostering hand the parting atoms catch,
Join in new forms, combine with life and sense,
And guide and guard the transmigrating Ens.


[_Mould with retractile glue_. l. 567. The constituent parts of animal
fibres are believed to be earth and gluten. These do not seperate except
by long putrefaction or by fire. The earth then effervesces with acids,
and can only be converted into glass by the greatest force of fire. The
gluten has continued united with the earth of the bones above 2000 years
in Egyptian mummies; but by long exposure to air or moisture it
diffolves and leaves only the earth. Hence bones long buried, when
exposed to the air, absorb moisture and crumble into powder. Phil.
Trans. No. 475. The retractibility or elasticity of the animal fibre
depends on the gluten; and of these fibres are composed the membranes
muscles and bones. Haller. Physiol. Tom. I, p. 2.

For the chemical decomposition of animal and vegetable bodies see the
ingenious work of Lavoisier, Traite de Chimie, Tom. I. p. 132. who
resolves all their component parts into oxygene, hydrogene, carbone, and
azote, the three former of which belong principally to vegetable and the
last to animal matter.]

[_The transmigrating Ens_. l. 574, The perpetual circulation of matter