THE COPERNICAN SYSTEM. Thomas Chatterton Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. T39457 K039720.000 Chatterton, Thomas, 1752-1770. Miscellanies in Prose and Verse; by Thomas Chatterton, the supposed author of the poems published under the names of Rowley, Canning, &c. London printed for Fielding and Walker, Pater-Noster Row, MDCCLXXVIII. 1778 pp. 90-91. xxxii,245,[3]p.,plates; 8⁰.

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THE COPERNICAN SYSTEM . THE sun revolving on his axis turns , And with creative fire intensely burns ; Impell'd the forcive air , our earth supreme , Rolls with the planets round the solar gleam ; First Mercury compleats his transient year , Glowing , refulgent , with reflected glare ; Bright Venus occupies a wider way , The early harbinger of night and day ; More distant still our globe terraqueous turns , Nor chills intense , nor fiercely heated burns ; Around her rolls the lunar orb of light , Trailing her silver glories through the night : On the earth's orbit see the various signs , Mark where the sun , our year compleating , shines : First the bright Ram his languid ray improves ; Next glaring wat'ry thro' the Bull he moves ; The am'rous Twins admit his genial ray ; Now burning , thro' the Crab he takes his way ; The Lion , flaming , bears the solar power ; The Virgin faints beneath the sultry shower . Now the just Ballance weighs his equal force , The slimy Serpent swelters in his course ; The sabled Archer clouds his languid face ; The Goat , with tempests , urges on his race ; Now in the Water his faint beams appear , And the cold Fishes end the circling year . Beyond our globe the sanguine Mars displays A strong reflection of primoeval rays ; Next belted Jupiter far distant gleams , Scarcely enlight'ned with the solar beams ; With four unfix'd receptacles of light , He tours majestic thro' the spacious height : But farther yet the tardy Saturn lags , And five attendant luminaries drags ; Investing with a double ring his pace , He circles thro' immensity of space . These are thy wond'rous works , first source of good ! Now more admir'd in being understood . Bristol , Dec. 23 . D. B.