Classic Poem

The Egyptians say, The Sun has twice
Shifted his setting and his rise;
Twice has he risen in the West,
As many times set in the East;
But whether that be true, or no,
The Devil any of you know.
Some hold, the Heavens, like a Top,
Are kept by Circulation up;
And 'twere not for their wheeling round,
They'd instantly fall to the ground:
As sage Empedocles of old,
And from him Modern Authors hold.
Plato believ'd the Sun and Moon,
Below all other Planets run.
Some Mercury, some Venus seat
Above the Sun himself in height.
The learned Scaliger complain'd
'Gainst what Copernicus maintain'd,
That in Twelve hundred years, and odd,
The Sun had left his antient Road,
And nearer to the Earth, is come
'Bove Fifty thousand miles from home.