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

More glittering trophies raise:
But wisest Heaven what deeds may chiefly move
To favour and to love?
What, save wide blessings, or averted harms?


IV.--2.

Nor to the embattled field
Shall these achievements of the peaceful gown,
The green immortal crown
Of valour, or the songs of conquest, yield.
Not Fairfax wildly bold,
While bare of crest he hew'd his fatal way
Through Naseby's firm array,
To heavier dangers did his breast oppose
Than Pym's free virtue chose,
When the proud force of Strafford he controll'd.


IV.--3.

But what is man at enmity with truth?
What were the fruits of Wentworth's copious mind,
When (blighted all the promise of his youth)
The patriot in a tyrant's league had join'd?
Let Ireland's loud-lamenting plains,
Let Tyne's and Humber's trampled swains,
Let menaced London tell
How impious guile made wisdom base;
How generous zeal to cruel rage gave place;
And how unbless'd he lived and how dishonour'd fell.


V.--1.

Thence never hath the Muse
Around his tomb Pierian roses flung:
Nor shall one poet's tongue
His name for music's pleasing labour choose.
And sure, when Nature kind
Hath deck'd some favour'd breast above the throng,
That man with grievous wrong
Affronts and wounds his genius, if he bends
To guilt's ignoble ends
The functions of his ill-submitting mind.


V.--2.

For worthy of the wise
Nothing can seem but virtue; nor earth yield
Their fame an equal field,
Save where impartial freedom gives the prize.
There Somers fix'd his name,
Enroll'd the next to William. There shall Time
To every wondering clime
Point out that Somers, who from faction's crowd,
The slanderous and the loud,
Could fair assent and modest reverence claim.


V.--3.

Nor aught did laws or social arts acquire,
Nor this majestic weal of Albion's land
Did aught accomplish, or to aught aspire,
Without his guidance, his superior hand.
And rightly shall the Muse's care
Wreaths like her own for him prepare,
Whose mind's enamour'd aim
Could forms of civil beauty draw
Sublime as ever sage or poet saw,
Yet still to life's rude scene the proud ideas tame.


VI.--1.

Let none profane be near!
The Muse was never foreign to his breast:
On power's grave seat confess'd,
Still to her voice he bent a lover's ear.
And if the blessed know
Their ancient cares, even now the unfading groves,
Where haply Milton roves
With Spenser, hear the enchanted echoes round
Through farthest heaven resound
Wise Somers, guardian of their fame below.


VI.--2.

He knew, the patriot knew,
That letters and the Muse's powerful art
Exalt the ingenuous heart,
And brighten every form of just and true.
They lend a nobler sway
To civil wisdom, than corruption's lure
Could ever yet procure:
They, too, from envy's pale malignant light
Conduct her forth to sight,
Clothed in the fairest colours of the day.


VI.--3.

O Townshend, thus may Time, the judge severe,
Instruct my happy tongue of thee to tell:
And when I speak of one to Freedom dear
For planning wisely and for acting well,
Of one whom Glory loves to own,
Who still by liberal means alone
Hath liberal ends pursued;
Then, for the guerdon of my lay,
'This man with faithful friendship,' will I say,
'From youth to honour'd age my arts and me hath view'd.'


ODE V.

ON LOVE OF PRAISE.


1 Of all the springs within the mind
Which prompt her steps in fortune's maze,
From none more pleasing aid we find
Than from the genuine love of praise.

2 Nor any partial, private end
Such reverence to the public bears;
Nor any passion, virtue's friend,
So like to virtue's self appears.

3 For who in glory can delight
Without delight in glorious deeds?
What man a charming voice can slight,
Who courts the echo that succeeds?

4 But not the echo on the voice
More than on virtue praise depends;
To which, of course, its real price
The judgment of the praiser lends.

5 If praise, then, with religious awe
From the sole perfect judge be sought,
A nobler aim, a purer law,
Nor priest, nor bard, nor sage hath taught.

6 With which in character the same,
Though in an humbler sphere it lies,
I count that soul of human fame,
The suffrage of the good and wise.


ODE VI.

TO WILLIAM HALL, ESQUIRE; WITH THE WORKS OF CHAULIEU.


1 Attend to Chaulieu's wanton lyre;
While, fluent as the skylark sings
When first the morn allures its wings,
The epicure his theme pursues:
And tell me if, among the choir
Whose music charms the banks of Seine,
So full, so free, so rich a strain
E'er dictated the warbling Muse.

2 Yet, Hall, while thy judicious ear
Admires the well-dissembled art
That can such harmony impart
To the lame pace of Gallic rhymes;
While wit from affectation clear,
Bright images, and passions true,
Recall to thy assenting view
The envied bards of nobler times;

3 Say, is not oft his doctrine wrong?
This priest of Pleasure, who aspires
To lead us to her sacred fires,
Knows he the ritual of her shrine?
Say (her sweet influence to thy song
So may the goddess still afford),
Doth she consent to be adored
With shameless love and frantic wine?

4 Nor Cato, nor Chrysippus here
Need we in high indignant phrase
From their Elysian quiet raise:
But Pleasure's oracle alone
Consult; attentive, not severe.
O Pleasure, we blaspheme not thee;
Nor emulate the rigid knee
Which bends but at the Stoic throne.

5 We own, had fate to man assign'd
Nor sense, nor wish but what obey,
Or Venus soft, or Bacchus gay,
Then might our bard's voluptuous creed
Most aptly govern human kind:
Unless perchance what he hath sung
Of tortured joints and nerves unstrung,
Some wrangling heretic should plead.

6 But now, with all these proud desires
For dauntless truth and honest fame;
With that strong master of our frame,
The inexorable judge within,
What can be done? Alas, ye fires
Of love; alas, ye rosy smiles,
Ye nectar'd cups from happier soils,--
Ye have no bribe his grace to win.


ODE VII.

TO THE RIGHT REVEREND BENJAMIN, LORD BISHOP OF WINCHESTER. 1754.


I.--l.

For toils which patriots have endured,
For treason quell'd and laws secured,
In every nation Time displays
The palm of honourable praise.
Envy may rail, and Faction fierce
May strive; but what, alas, can those
(Though bold, yet blind and sordid foes)
To Gratitude and Love oppose,
To faithful story and persuasive verse?


I.--2.