How bold this project, to defy
The artillery of a summer sky:
Round you, unmoved, the lightning plays,
While others perish in the blaze.
The fluid fire, in deafening peals,
Along the warm conductor steals;
And thence directed to the ground,
It glances off without a wound!
Thus guarded, while the heavens are bowed,
You, fearless, see the passing cloud;
And Jove's red bolts unheeded fall,
Near You, who slight, or scorn them all.
The beaver on your sacred scull,
( Secure as Salamander's wool )
Assists to keep from your rigg'd head
The flash that strikes us, wretches, dead.
But while the sulphur of the skies,
Disarmed, from this fair lady flies;
Or while the warm electric fire
In flashes darts along her spire,
She, not so merciful or kind,
( Or we, not guarded to her mind )
By Cupid's darts, procures our fall,
By Cupid's arrows kills us all.