L’Encyclopédie/1re édition/NOCTULIUS
NOCTULIUS, (Mythol.) dieu de la nuit qu’on représentoit éteignant son flambeau, & ayant à ses piés une chouette ; mais Congreve l’a su peindre avec des traits ingénieux & délicats.
Noctulius the night’s god appears.
In all its downy pomp array’d,
Behold the révérend shade.
An ancient sigh he sits upon,
Whose memory of sound is long since gone
And purposely annihilated for his throne.
Beneath, two soft transparent clouds do meet,
In wich he seems to sink his softer feet.
A melancholy thought, condens’d to air,
Stoll’n from a lover in dispair,
Like a thin mantle, serves to wrap
In fluids folds his visionary shape ;
A wreath of darkness round his head he wears,
Where curlings mists supply the want of hairs.
While the still vapours, Wich front poppies rise,
Bedew his hoary head, and lull his eyes.
(D. J.)