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

suit her mien,
Where'er he finds them scatter'd through the paths
Of Nature or of Fortune. Then he seats
The accomplish'd image deep within his breast,
Reviews it, and accounts it good and fair.

Thus the one Beauty of the world entire, 650
The universal Venus, far beyond
The keenest effort of created eyes,
And their most wide horizon, dwells enthroned
In ancient silence. At her footstool stands
An altar burning with eternal fire
Unsullied, unconsumed. Here every hour,
Here every moment, in their turns arrive
Her offspring; an innumerable band
Of sisters, comely all! but differing far
In age, in stature, and expressive mien, 660
More than bright Helen from her new-born babe.
To this maternal shrine in turns they come,
Each with her sacred lamp; that from the source
Of living flame, which here immortal flows,
Their portions of its lustre they may draw
For days, or months, or years; for ages, some;
As their great parent's discipline requires.
Then to their several mansions they depart,
In stars, in planets, through the unknown shores
Of yon ethereal ocean. Who can tell, 670
Even on the surface of this rolling earth,
How many make abode? The fields, the groves,
The winding rivers and the azure main,
Are render'd solemn by their frequent feet,
Their rites sublime. There each her destined home
Informs with that pure radiance from the skies
Brought down, and shines throughout her little sphere,
Exulting. Straight, as travellers by night
Turn toward a distant flame, so some fit eye,
Among the various tenants of the scene, 680
Discerns the heaven-born phantom seated there,
And owns her charms. Hence the wide universe,
Through all the seasons of revolving worlds,
Bears witness with its people, gods and men,
To Beauty's blissful power, and with the voice
Of grateful admiration still resounds:
That voice, to which is Beauty's frame divine
As is the cunning of the master's hand
To the sweet accent of the well-tuned lyre.

Genius of ancient Greece, whose faithful steps 690
Have led us to these awful solitudes
Of Nature and of Science; nurse revered
Of generous counsels and heroic deeds;
Oh! let some portion of thy matchless praise
Dwell in my breast, and teach me to adorn
This unattempted theme. Nor be my thoughts
Presumptuous counted, if, amid the calm
Which Hesper sheds along the vernal heaven,
If I, from vulgar Superstition's walk,
Impatient steal, and from the unseemly rites 700
Of splendid Adulation, to attend
With hymns thy presence in the sylvan shade,
By their malignant footsteps unprofaned.
Come, O renowned power; thy glowing mien
Such, and so elevated all thy form,
As when the great barbaric lord, again
And yet again diminish'd, hid his face
Among the herd of satraps and of kings;
And, at the lightning of thy lifted spear,
Crouch'd like a slave. Bring all thy martial spoils, 710
Thy palms, thy laurels, thy triumphal songs,
Thy smiling band of Arts, thy godlike sires
Of civil wisdom, thy unconquer'd youth,
After some glorious day rejoicing round
Their new-erected trophy. Guide my feet
Through fair Lyceum's walk, the olive shades
Of Academus, and the sacred vale
Haunted by steps divine, where once, beneath
That ever living platane's ample boughs,
Ilissus, by Socratic sounds detain'd, 720
On his neglected urn attentive lay;
While Boreas, lingering on the neighbouring steep
With beauteous Orithyia, his love tale
In silent awe suspended. There let me
With blameless hand, from thy unenvious fields,
Transplant some living blossoms, to adorn
My native clime; while, far beyond the meed
Of Fancy's toil aspiring, I unlock
The springs of ancient wisdom; while I add
(What cannot be disjoin'd from Beauty's praise) 730
Thy name and native dress, thy works beloved
And honour'd; while to my compatriot youth
I point the great example of thy sons,
And tune to Attic themes the British lyre.

[Footnote 2: Truth is here taken, not in a logical, but in a mixed and popular sense, or for what has been called the truth of things; denoting as well their natural and regular condition, as a proper estimate or judgment concerning them.]

[Footnote 3: 'Dyson:' see Life .]


BOOK II. 1765.


ARGUMENT.

Introduction to this more difficult part of the subject. Of Truth and its three classes, matter of fact, experimental or scientifical truth (contra-distinguished from opinion), and universal truth; which last is either metaphysical or geometrical, either purely intellectual or perfectly abstracted. On the power of discerning truth depends that of acting with the view of an end; a circumstance essential to virtue. Of Virtue, considered in the divine mind as a perpetual and universal beneficence. Of human virtue, considered as a system of particular sentiments and actions, suitable to the design of Providence and the condition of man; to whom it constitutes the chief good and the first beauty. Of Vice, and its origin. Of Ridicule: its general nature and final cause. Of the Passions; particularly of those which relate to evil natural or moral, and which are generally accounted painful, though not always unattended with pleasure.


Thus far of Beauty and the pleasing forms
Which man's untutor'd fancy, from the scenes
Imperfect of this ever changing world,
Creates; and views, enarnour'd. Now my song
Severer themes demand: mysterious Truth;
And Virtue, sovereign good: the spells, the trains,
The progeny of Error; the dread sway
Of Passion; and whatever hidden stores
From her own lofty deeds and from herself
The mind acquires. Severer argument: 10
Not less attractive; nor deserving less
A constant ear. For what are all the forms
Educed by fancy from corporeal things,
Greatness, or pomp, or symmetry of parts?
Not tending to the heart, soon feeble grows,
As the blunt arrow 'gainst the knotty trunk,
Their impulse on the sense: while the pall'd eye
Expects in vain its tribute; asks in vain,
Where are the ornaments it once admired?
Not so the moral species, nor the powers 20
Of Passion and of Thought. The ambitious mind
With objects boundless as her own desires
Can there converse: by these unfading forms
Touch'd and awaken'd still, with eager act
She bends each nerve, and meditates well pleased
Her gifts, her godlike fortune. Such the scenes
Now opening round us. May the destined verse
Maintain its equal tenor, though in tracts
Obscure and arduous! May the source of light,
All-present, all-sufficient, guide our steps 30
Through every maze! and whom, in childish years,
From the loud throng, the beaten paths of wealth
And power, thou didst apart send forth to speak
In tuneful words concerning highest things,
Him still do thou, O Father, at those hours
Of pensive freedom, when the human soul
Shuts out the rumour of the world, him still
Touch thou with secret lessons; call thou back
Each erring thought; and let the yielding strains
From his full bosom, like a welcome rill 40
Spontaneous from its healthy fountain, flow!

But from what name, what favourable sign,
What heavenly auspice, rather shall I date
My perilous excursion, than from Truth,
That nearest inmate of the human soul;
Estranged from whom, the countenance divine
Of man, disfigured and dishonour'd, sinks
Among inferior things? For to the brutes
Perception and the transient boons of sense
Hath Fate imparted; but to man alone 50
Of sublunary beings was it given.
Each fleeting impulse on the sensual powers
At leisure to review; with equal eye
To scan the passion of the stricken nerve,
Or the vague object striking; to conduct
From sense, the portal turbulent and loud,
Into the mind's wide palace one by one
The frequent, pressing, fluctuating forms,
And question and compare them. Thus he learns
Their birth and fortunes; how allied they haunt 60
The avenues of sense; what laws direct
Their union; and what various discords rise,
Or fixed, or casual; which when his clear thought
Retains and when his faithful words express,
That living image of the external scene,
As in a polish'd mirror held to view,
Is Truth; where'er it varies from the shape
And hue of its exemplar, in that part
Dim Error lurks. Moreover, from without
When oft the same society of forms