Poetical Works of Akenside, Mark Akenside [top novels to read TXT] 📗

partiality in the case, that he reckons it among those favours for which he was especially thankful to the gods, that they had not suffered him to make any great proficiency in the arts of eloquence and poetry, lest by that means he should have been diverted from pursuits of more importance to his high station. Speaking of the beauty of universal nature, he observes, that there 'is a pleasing and graceful aspect in every object we perceive,' when once we consider its connexion with that general order. He instances in many things which at first sight would be thought rather deformities; and then adds, 'that a man who enjoys a sensibility of temper with a just comprehension of the universal order--will discern many amiable things, not credible to every mind, but to those alone who have entered into an honourable familiarity with nature and her works.'
-- M. Antonin . iii. 2.


THE

PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION.


A POEM.

GENERAL ARGUMENT.

The pleasures of the imagination proceed either from natural objects, as from a flourishing grove, a clear and murmuring fountain, a calm sea by moonlight; or from works of art, such as a noble edifice, a musical tune, a statue, a picture, a poem. In treating of these pleasures, we must begin with the former class; they being original to the other; and nothing more being necessary, in order to explain them, than a view of our natural inclination toward greatness and beauty, and of those appearances, in the world around us, to which that inclination is adapted. This is the subject of the first book of the following poem.

But the pleasures which we receive from the elegant arts, from music, sculpture, painting, and poetry, are much more various and complicated. In them (besides greatness and beauty, or forms proper to the imagination) we find interwoven frequent representations of truth, of virtue and vice, of circumstances proper to move us with laughter, or to excite in us pity, fear, and the other passions. These moral and intellectual objects are described in the second book; to which the third properly belongs as an episode, though too large to have been included in it.

With the above-mentioned causes of pleasure, which are universal in the course of human life, and appertain to our higher faculties, many others do generally occur, more limited in their operation, or of an inferior origin: such are the novelty of objects, the association of ideas, affections of the bodily senses, influences of education, national habits, and the like. To illustrate these, and from the whole to determine the character of a perfect taste, is the argument of the fourth book.

Hitherto the pleasures of the imagination belong to the human species in general. But there are certain particular men whose imagination is endowed with powers, and susceptible of pleasures, which the generality of mankind never participate. These are the men of genius, destined by nature to excel in one or other of the arts already mentioned. It is proposed, therefore, in the last place, to delineate that genius which in some degree appears common to them all; yet with a more peculiar consideration of poetry: inasmuch as poetry is the most extensive of those arts, the most philosophical, and the most useful.


BOOK I. 1757.


ARGUMENT.

The subject proposed. Dedication. The ideas of the Supreme Being, the exemplars of all things. The variety of constitution in the minds of men; with its final cause. The general character of a fine imagination. All the immediate pleasures of the human imagination proceed either from Greatness or Beauty in external objects. The pleasure from Greatness; with its final cause. The natural connexion of Beauty with truth [2] and good. The different orders of Beauty in different objects. The infinite and all-comprehending form of Beauty, which belongs to the Divine Mind. The partial and artificial forms of Beauty, which belong to inferior intellectual beings. The origin and general conduct of beauty in man. The subordination of local beauties to the beauty of the Universe. Conclusion.

With what enchantment Nature's goodly scene
Attracts the sense of mortals; how the mind
For its own eye doth objects nobler still
Prepare; how men by various lessons learn
To judge of Beauty's praise; what raptures fill
The breast with fancy's native arts endow'd,
And what true culture guides it to renown,
My verse unfolds. Ye gods, or godlike powers,
Ye guardians of the sacred task, attend
Propitious. Hand in hand around your bard 10
Move in majestic measures, leading on
His doubtful step through many a solemn path,
Conscious of secrets which to human sight
Ye only can reveal. Be great in him:
And let your favour make him wise to speak
Of all your wondrous empire; with a voice
So temper'd to his theme, that those who hear
May yield perpetual homage to yourselves.
Thou chief, O daughter of eternal Love,
Whate'er thy name; or Muse, or Grace, adored 20
By Grecian prophets; to the sons of Heaven
Known, while with deep amazement thou dost there
The perfect counsels read, the ideas old,
Of thine omniscient Father; known on earth
By the still horror and the blissful tear
With which thou seizest on the soul of man;
Thou chief, Poetic Spirit, from the banks
Of Avon, whence thy holy fingers cull
Fresh flowers and dews to sprinkle on the turf
Where Shakspeare lies, be present. And with thee 30
Let Fiction come, on her aerial wings
Wafting ten thousand colours, which in sport,
By the light glances of her magic eye,
She blends and shifts at will through countless forms,
Her wild creation. Goddess of the lyre,
Whose awful tones control the moving sphere,
Wilt thou, eternal Harmony, descend,
And join this happy train? for with thee comes
The guide, the guardian of their mystic rites,
Wise Order: and, where Order deigns to come, 40
Her sister, Liberty, will not be far.
Be present all ye Genii, who conduct
Of youthful bards the lonely wandering step
New to your springs and shades; who touch their ear
With finer sounds, and heighten to their eye
The pomp of nature, and before them place
The fairest, loftiest countenance of things.

Nor thou, my Dyson, [3] to the lay refuse
Thy wonted partial audience. What though first,
In years unseason'd, haply ere the sports 50
Of childhood yet were o'er, the adventurous lay
With many splendid prospects, many charms,
Allured my heart, nor conscious whence they sprung,
Nor heedful of their end? yet serious Truth
Her empire o'er the calm, sequester'd theme
Asserted soon; while Falsehood's evil brood,
Vice and deceitful Pleasure, she at once
Excluded, and my fancy's careless toil
Drew to the better cause. Maturer aid
Thy friendship added, in the paths of life, 60
The busy paths, my unaccustom'd feet
Preserving: nor to Truth's recess divine,
Through this wide argument's unbeaten space,
Withholding surer guidance; while by turns
We traced the sages old, or while the queen
Of sciences (whom manners and the mind
Acknowledge) to my true companion's voice
Not unattentive, o'er the wintry lamp
Inclined her sceptre, favouring. Now the fates
Have other tasks imposed;--to thee, my friend, 70
The ministry of freedom and the faith
Of popular decrees, in early youth,
Not vainly they committed; me they sent
To wait on pain, and silent arts to urge,
Inglorious; not ignoble, if my cares,
To such as languish on a grievous bed,
Ease and the sweet forgetfulness of ill
Conciliate; nor delightless, if the Muse,
Her shades to visit and to taste her springs,
If some distinguish'd hours the bounteous Muse 80
Impart, and grant (what she, and she alone,
Can grant to mortals) that my hand those wreaths
Of fame and honest favour, which the bless'd
Wear in Elysium, and which never felt
The breath of envy or malignant tongues,
That these my hand for thee and for myself
May gather. Meanwhile, O my faithful friend,
O early chosen, ever found the same,
And trusted and beloved, once more the verse
Long destined, always obvious to thine ear, 90
Attend, indulgent: so in latest years,
When time thy head with honours shall have clothed
Sacred to even virtue, may thy mind,
Amid the calm review of seasons past,
Fair offices of friendship, or kind peace,
Or public zeal, may then thy mind well pleased
Recall these happy studies of our prime.
From Heaven my strains begin: from Heaven descends
The flame of genius to the chosen breast,
And beauty with poetic wonder join'd, 100
And inspiration. Ere the rising sun
Shone o'er the deep, or 'mid the vault of night
The moon her silver lamp suspended; ere
The vales with springs were water'd, or with groves
Of oak or pine the ancient hills were crown'd;
Then the Great Spirit, whom his works adore,
Within his own deep essence view'd the forms,
The forms eternal of created things:
The radiant sun; the moon's nocturnal lamp;
The mountains and the streams; the ample stores 110
Of earth, of heaven, of nature. From the first,
On that full scene his love divine he fix'd,
His admiration: till, in time complete,
What he admired and loved his vital power
Unfolded into being. Hence the breath
Of life informing each organic frame:
Hence the green