Sympathetic Theater

[They] transfer into a more occult quality,
And very many call this the soul of the world:
But Digby, another Oedipus to the Sphinx,
Assumes things here different from the rest,
And solves here and there the knots of enigmas,
In which a more intricate Nature abounds.
He desires, truly, that the entire Air be full of Light,
And that Light presides over every individual thing,
And that it carries atoms with itself through the longest
Intervening space of locations, and afterward
Brings them back, just as a ball is repelled by the force of a wall,
It carries some small bodies along with it:
And not otherwise than as the linen, soaked in poured liquid,
While it grows warm under a nearby fire,
Is accustomed to produce a cloud, or something of that sort:
And thus we see the lamp reflected,
While the morning solar beam illuminates
The earth drenched in dewy liquid:
Hence rises a thicker air, seeking the sky,
And forms a cloud, which is soon lifted
By the orb of the Sun, until it flees from the eyes:
And nothing, the Author continues, is this empty space of air:
But these already noted small bodies;
Hence he also proves that little vipers,
Shut up in the prison of glass, live,
And feed on atoms with great interest:
For they have a grander increase day by day.
And here you see a knot hidden, Arge,
Why does the wart, when the horns of Selena the Moon are seen,
No longer press the hand with its presence?
But proceed, Muse, to unfold the pages!
The Author still recounts; these small bodies,