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

foreknowing maid who sits 240
Upon the Delphic tripod, shall implore
To wield their sceptre, and the rural wealth
Of fruitful Chersonesus to protect
With arms and laws. But, nothing careful now
Save for his injured country, here he stands
In deep solicitude with Cimon join'd:
Unconscious both what widely different lots
Await them, taught by nature as they are
To know one common good, one common ill.
For Cimon, not his valour, not his birth 250
Derived from Codrus, not a thousand gifts
Dealt round him with a wise, benignant hand;
No, not the Olympic olive, by himself
From his own brow transferr'd to soothe the mind
Of this Pisistratus, can long preserve
From the fell envy of the tyrant's sons,
And their assassin dagger. But if death
Obscure upon his gentle steps attend,
Yet fate an ample recompense prepares
In his victorious son, that other great 260
Miltiades, who o'er the very throne
Of Glory shall with Time's assiduous hand
In adamantine characters engrave
The name of Athens; and, by Freedom arm'd
'Gainst the gigantic pride of Asia's king,
Shall all the achievements of the heroes old
Surmount, of Hercules, of all who sail'd
From Thessaly with Jason, all who fought
For empire or for fame at Thebes or Troy.

Such were the patriots who within the porch 270
Of Solon had assembled. But the gate
Now opens, and across the ample floor
Straight they proceed into an open space
Bright with the beams of morn: a verdant spot,
Where stands a rural altar, piled with sods
Cut from the grassy turf and girt with wreaths,
Of branching palm. Here Solon's self they found
Clad in a robe of purple pure, and deck'd
With leaves of olive on his reverend brow.
He bow'd before the altar, and o'er cakes 280
Of barley from two earthen vessels pour'd
Of honey and of milk a plenteous stream;
Calling meantime the Muses to accept
His simple offering, by no victim tinged
With blood, nor sullied by destroying fire,
But such as for himself Apollo claims
In his own Delos, where his favourite haunt
Is thence the Altar of the Pious named.

Unseen the guests drew near, and silent view'd
That worship; till the hero-priest his eye 290
Turn'd toward a seat on which prepared there lay
A branch of laurel. Then his friends confess'd
Before him stood. Backward his step he drew,
As loath that care or tumult should approach
Those early rites divine; but soon their looks,
So anxious, and their hands, held forth with such
Desponding gesture, bring him on perforce
To speak to their affliction. 'Are ye come,'
He cried, 'to mourn with me this common shame?
Or ask ye some new effort which may break 300
Our fetters? Know then, of the public cause
Not for yon traitor's cunning or his might
Do I despair; nor could I wish from Jove
Aught dearer, than at this late hour of life,
As once by laws, so now by strenuous arms,
From impious violation to assert
The rights our fathers left us. But, alas!
What arms? or who shall wield them? Ye beheld
The Athenian people. Many bitter days
Must pass, and many wounds from cruel pride 310
Be felt, ere yet their partial hearts find room
For just resentment, or their hands indure
To smite this tyrant brood, so near to all
Their hopes, so oft admired, so long beloved.
That time will come, however. Be it yours
To watch its fair approach, and urge it on
With honest prudence; me it ill beseems
Again to supplicate the unwilling crowd
To rescue from a vile deceiver's hold
That envied power, which once with eager zeal 320
They offer'd to myself; nor can I plunge
In counsels deep and various, nor prepare
For distant wars, thus faltering as I tread
On life's last verge, ere long to join the shades
Of Minos and Lycurgus. But behold
What care employs me now. My vows I pay
To the sweet Muses, teachers of my youth
And solace of my age. If right I deem
Of the still voice that whispers at my heart,
The immortal sisters have not quite withdrawn 330
Their old harmonious influence. Let your tongues
With sacred silence favour what I speak,
And haply shall my faithful lips be taught
To unfold celestial counsels, which may arm,
As with impenetrable steel your breasts,
For the long strife before you, and repel
The darts of adverse fate.'--He said, and snatch'd
The laurel bough, and sate in silence down,
Fix'd, wrapp'd in solemn musing, full before
The sun, who now from all his radiant orb 340
Drove the gray clouds, and pour'd his genial light
Upon the breast of Solon. Solon raised
Aloft the leafy rod, and thus began:--

'Ye beauteous offspring of Olympian Jove
And Memory divine, Pierian maids,
Hear me, propitious. In the morn of life,
When hope shone bright and all the prospect smiled,
To your sequester'd mansion oft my steps
Were turn'd, O Muses, and within your gate
My offerings paid. Ye taught me then with strains 350
Of flowing harmony to soften war's
Dire voice, or in fair colours, that might charm
The public eye, to clothe the form austere
Of civil counsel. Now my feeble age,
Neglected, and supplanted of the hope
On which it lean'd, yet sinks not, but to you,
To your mild wisdom flies, refuge beloved
Of solitude and silence. Ye can teach
The visions of my bed whate'er the gods
In the rude ages of the world inspired, 360
Or the first heroes acted; ye can make
The morning light more gladsome to my sense
Than ever it appear'd to active youth
Pursuing careless pleasure; ye can give
To this long leisure, these unheeded hours,
A labour as sublime, as when the sons
Of Athens throng'd and speechless round me stood,
To hear pronounced for all their future deeds
The bounds of right and wrong. Celestial powers!
I feel that ye are near me: and behold, 370
To meet your energy divine, I bring
A high and sacred theme; not less than those
Which to the eternal custody of Fame
Your lips intrusted, when of old ye deign'd
With Orpheus or with Homer to frequent
The groves of Haemus or the Chian shore.

'Ye know, harmonious maids, (for what of all
My various life was e'er from you estranged?)
Oft hath my solitary song to you
Reveal'd that duteous pride which turn'd my steps 380
To willing exile; earnest to withdraw
From envy and the disappointed thirst
Of lucre, lest the bold familiar strife,
Which in the eye of Athens they upheld
Against her legislator, should impair
With trivial doubt the reverence of his laws.
To Egypt therefore through the AEgean isles
My course I steer'd, and by the banks of Nile
Dwelt in Canopus. Thence the hallow'd domes
Of Sals, and the rites to Isis paid, 390
I sought, and in her temple's silent courts,
Through many changing moons, attentive heard
The venerable Sonchis, while his tongue
At morn or midnight the deep story told
Of her who represents whate'er has been,
Or is, or shall be; whose mysterious veil
No mortal hand hath ever yet removed.
By him exhorted, southward to the walls
Of On I pass'd, the city of the sun,
The ever-youthful god. Twas there, amid 400
His priests and sages, who the livelong night
Watch the dread movements of the starry sphere,
Or who in wondrous fables half disclose
The secrets of the elements, 'twas there
That great Paenophis taught my raptured ears
The fame of old Atlantis, of her chiefs,
And her pure laws, the first which earth obey'd.
Deep in my bosom sunk the noble tale;
And often, while I listen'd, did my mind
Foretell with what delight her own free lyre 410
Should sometime for an Attic audience raise