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Should darkness Egyptian, or ignorance spread Its clouds o'er the mind, or envelope the head, This Rod thrice applied, puts the darkness to flight Disperses the clouds, and restores us to light, Like the Virga divina, twill find out the vein Where lurks the rich metal - the gold of the brain. Should Genius a captive by Sloth be confined Or the witchcraft of pleasure prevail o'er the mind Apply but their magical wand - with a stroke The spell is dissolved, the enchantmt is broke, Like Hermes's rod, these few switches inspire Rhetorical thunder and Poetrys' fire. And if Morpheus our temples in Lethe should steep, These switches untie all the fetter of sleep. Here dwells strong conviction, of Logic the glory When tis us'd with precision or posteriori It promotes circulation, and thrills thro each vein The faculty quickens, and purges the brain. Whatever disorders prevail in the blood The birch can correct them like guiacum wood. So luscious the juice is, so sweet are its twigs That at Sheffield they call them the Walkey-bank figs. As the fam'd rod of Circe to brutes could change men To the twigs of the birch can unbrute them again Like the rod of the Sybil, that branch of pure gold These twigs can the gate of Elysium unfold.