† Alluding to the known story of William Tell and his The par is a small fish, not unlike the smelt, which it associates, the fathers and founders of the confederacy of rivals in delicacy and flavor. the Swiss Cantons.

MARK AKENSIDE.

THE

PLEASURES OF IMAGINATION.

A POEM, IN THREE BOOKS.

Ασεβυσμέν εςιν ἀνθρωπε τὰς παρὰ τῷ θεω χάρθας ἀτιμάζειν.
Epict. apud Arrian. II. 13.

PUBLISHED IN THE YEAR 1744.

BOOK I

Argument.

The bloom of Nature, and before him turn
The gayest, happiest attitude of things.

Oft have the laws of each poetic strain
The critic-verse employ'd; yet still unsung
Lay this prime subject, though importing most
A poet's name: for fruitless is th' attempt,
By dull obedience and by creeping toil
Obscure to conquer the severe ascent
Of high Parnassus. Nature's kindling breath
Must fire the chosen genius; Nature's hand
Must string his nerves, and imp his eagle-wings
Impatient of the painful steep, to soar
High as the summit; there to breathe at large
Ethereal air; with bards and sages old,
Immortal sons of praise. These flattering scenes,
To this neglected labor court my song;
Yet not unconscious what a doubtful task
To paint the finest features of the mind,
And to most subtle and mysterious things
Give color, strength, and motion.
Of Nature and the Muses bids explore,
Through secret paths erewhile untrod by man,
The fair poetic region, to detect
Untasted springs, to drink inspiring draughts,
And shade my temples with unfading flowers
Cull'd from the laureate vale's profound recess,
Where never poet gain'd a wreath before.
From Heaven my strains begin; from Heaven
descends

But the love

The subject proposed. Difficulty of treating it poetically. The ideas of the Divine Mind, the origin of every quality pleasing to the imagination. The natural variety of constitution in the minds of men; with its final cause. The idea of a fine imagination, and the state of the mind in the enjoyment of those pleasures which it affords All the primary pleasures of the imagination result from the perception of greatness, or wonderfulness, or beauty, in objects. The plea- The flame of genius to the human breast, sure from greatness, with its final cause. Pleasure And love and beauty, and poetic joy from novelty or wonderfulness, with its final And inspiration. Ere the radiant Sun cause. Pleasure from beauty, with its final cause. Sprang from the east, or 'mid the vault of night The connexion of beauty with truth and good, The Moon suspended her serener lamp; applied to the conduct of life. Invitation to the Ere mountains, woods, or streams, adorn'd the globe study of moral philosophy. The different degrees Or Wisdom taught the sons of men her lore; of beauty in different species of objects: color; Then liv'd th' Almighty One: then, deep retir'd shape; natural concretes; vegetables; animals; In his unfathom'd essence, view'd the forms,' the mind. The sublime, the fair, the wonderful The forms eternal of created things; of the mind. The connexion of the imagination and the moral faculty. Conclusion.

WITH what attractive charms this goodly frame
Of Nature touches the consenting hearts
Of mortal men; and what the pleasing stores
Which beauteous imitation thence derives
To deck the poet's, or the painter's toil;
My verse unfolds. Attend, ye gentle powers
Of musical delight! and while I sing
Your gifts, your honors, dance around my strain.
Thou, smiling queen of every tuneful breast,
Indulgent Fancy! from the fruitful banks
Of Avon, whence thy rosy fingers cull
Fresh flowers and dews to sprinkle on the turf
Where Shakspeare lies, be present and with thee
Let Fiction come, upon her vagrant wings
Wafting ten thousand colors through the air,
Which, by the glances of her magic eye,

The radiant Sun, the Moon's nocturnal lamp,
The mountains, woods and streams, the rolling globe
And Wisdom's mien celestial. From the first
Of days, on them his love divine he fix'd,
His admiration: till in time complete,
What he admir'd and lov'd, his vital smile'
Unfolded into being. Hence the breath
Of life informing each organic frame,
Hence the green earth, and wild resounding waves
Hence light and shade alternate; warmth and cold
And clear autumnal skies and vernal showers,
And all the fair variety of things.

But not alike to every mortal eye

Is this great scene unveil'd. For since the claims
Of social life, to different labors urge
The active powers of man! with wise intent
The hand of Nature on peculiar minds
Imprints a different bias, and to each
Decrees its province in the common toil.

She blends and shifts at will, through countless forms, To some she taught the fabric of the sphere,

Her wild creation. Goddess of the lyre,
Which rules the accents of the moving sphere,
Wilt thou, eternal Harmony! descend

And join this festive train for with thee comes
The guide, the guardian of their lovely sports,
Majestic Truth; and where Truth deigns to come,
Her sister Liberty will not be far.

Be present, all ye geni, who conduct
The wandering footsteps of the youthful bard,

The changeful Moon, the circuit of the stars,
The golden zones of Heaven; to some she gave
To weigh the moment of eternal things,
Of time, and space, and Fate's unbroken chain,
And will's quick impulse: others by the hand
She led o'er vales and mountains, to explore
What healing virtue swells the tender veins
Of herbs and flowers; or what the beams of morn
Draw forth, distilling from the clefted rind

New to your springs and shades: who touch his ear In balmy tears. But some, to higher hopes
With finer sounds: who heighten to his eye

Were destin'd; some within a finer mould

1

She wrought, and temper'd with a purer flame.
To these the Sire Omnipotent unfolds

The world's harmonious volume, there to read
The transcript of himself. On every part
They trace the bright impressions of his hand.
In earth or air, the meadow's purple stores,
The Moon's mild radiance, or the virgin's form
Blooming with rosy smiles, they see portray'd
That uncreated beauty, which delights
The mind supreme. They also feel her charms,
Enamour'd; they partake the eternal joy.

For as old Memmon's image, long renown'd
By fabling Nilus, to the quivering touch
Of Titan's ray, with each repulsive string
Consenting, sounded through the warbling air
Unbidden strains; even so did Nature's hand
To certain species of external things,
Attune the finer organs of the mind:
So the glad impulse of congenial powers,
Or of sweet sounds, or fair-proportion'd form,
The grace of motion, or the bloom of light,
Thrills through Imagination's tender frame,
From nerve to nerve: all naked and alive,
They catch the spreading rays; till now the soul
At length discloses every tuneful spring,
To that harmonious movement from without
Responsive. Then the inexpressive strain
Diffuses its enchantment: Fancy dreams
Of sacred fountains and Elysian groves,
And vales of bliss: the intellectual power
Bends from his awful throne a wondering ear,
And smiles: the passions, gently sooth'd away,
Sink to divine repose, and love and joy
Alone are waking; love and joy serene
As airs that fan the summer. O! attend,
Whoe'er thou art, whom these delights can touch,
Whose candid bosom the refining love
Of Nature warms, O listen to my song;
And I will guide thee to her favorite walks,
And teach thy solitude her voice to hear,
And point her loveliest features to thy view.
Know then, whate'er of Nature's pregnant stores,
Whate'er of mimic Art's reflected forms
With love and admiration thus inflame
The powers of fancy, her delighted sons
To three illustrious orders have referr'd;
Three sister-graces, whom the painter's hand,
The poet's tongue, confesses; the sublime,
The wonderful, the fair. I see them dawn!
I see the radiant visions, where they rise,
More lovely than when Lucifer displays
His beaming forehead through the gates of morn,
To lead the train of Phoebus and the Spring.
Say, why was man so eminently rais'd
Amid the vast creation; why ordain'd
Through life and death to dart his piercing eye,
With thoughts beyond the limit of his frame;
But that the Omnipotent might send him forth
In sight of mortal and immortal powers,
As on a boundless theatre, to run
The great career of justice; to exalt
His generous aim to all diviner deeds;

To chase each partial purpose from his breast;
And through the mists of passion and of sense,
And through the tossing tide of chance and pain,
To hold his course unfaltering, while the voice
Of Truth and Virtue, up the steep ascent
Of Nature, calls him to his high reward,

That breathes from day to day sublimer things,
And mocks possession? wherefore darts the mind
With such resistless ardor to embrace
Majestic forms; impatient to be free,
Spurning the gross control of wilful might;
Proud of the strong contention of her toils;
Proud to be daring? Who but rather turns
To Heaven's broad fire his unconstrained view,
Than to the glimmering of a waxen flame?
Who that, from Alpine heights, his laboring eye
Shoots round the wide horizon, to survey
Nilus or Ganges rolling his bright wave
Through mountains, plains, through empires black
with shade

And continents of sand; will turn his gaze
To mark the windings of a scanty rill

That murmurs at his feet? The high-born soul
Disdains to rest her heaven-aspiring wing
Beneath its native narry. Tir'd of Earth
And this diurnal scene, she springs aloft
Through fields of air; pursues the flying storm,
Rides on the volley'd lightning through the Heavens
Or, yok'd with whirlwinds and the northern blast,
Sweeps the long tract of day. Then high she soars
The blue profound, and hovering round the Sun
Beholds him pouring the redundant stream
Of light; beholds his unrelenting sway
Bend the reluctant planets to absolve
The fated rounds of Time. Thence far effus'd
She darts her swiftness up the long career
Of devious comets; through its burning signs
Exulting measures the perennial wheel
Of Nature, and looks back on all the stars,
Whose blended light, as with a milky zone,
Invests the orient. Now amaz'd she views
The empyreal waste, where happy spirits hold,
Beyond this concave Heaven, their calm abode;
And fields of radiance, whose unfading light
Has travell'd the profound six thousand years.
Nor yet arrives in sight of mortal things.
Even on the barriers of the world untir'd
She meditates the eternal depth below;
Till half recoiling, down the headlong steep
She plunges; soon o'erwhelm'd and swallow'd up
In that immense of being. There her hopes
Rest at the fated goal. For from the birth
Of mortal man, the sovereign Maker said,
That not in humble nor in brief delight,
Not in the fading echoes of Renown,
Power's purple robes, nor Pleasure's flowery lap,
The soul should find enjoyment: but from these
Turning disdainful to an equal good,
Through all the ascent of things enlarge her view
Till every bound at length should disappear,
And infinite perfection close the scene.

Call now to mind what high capacious powers
Lie folded up in man; how far beyond
The praise of imortals, may the eternal growth
Of Nature to perfection half divine,
Expand the blooming soul? What pity then
Should sloth's unkindly fogs depress to Earth
Her tender blossom; choke the streams of life
And blast her spring! Far otherwise design'd
Almighty Wisdom; Nature's happy cares
The obedient heart far otherwise incline.
Witness the sprightly joy when aught unknown
Strikes the quick sense, and wakes each active power
To brisker measures: witness the neglect

The applauding smile of Heaven? Else wherefore burns Of all familiar prospects, though beheld

In mortal bosoms this unquenched hope,

With transport once; the fond attentive gaze