<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=454971" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Pleasures of Imagination: Book The First</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">With what attractive charms this goodly frame<br>Of nature touches the consenting hearts<br>Of mortal men; and what the pleasing stores<br>Which beauteous imitation thence derives<br>To deck the poet's, or the painter's toil;<br>My verse unfolds. Attend, ye gentle powers<br>Of musical delight! and while i sing<br>Your gifts, your honours, dance around my strain.<br>Thou, smiling queen of every tuneful breast,<br>Indulgent Fancy! from the fruitful banks<br>Of Avon, whence thy rosy fingers cull<br>Fresh flowers and dews to sprinkle on the turf<br>Where Shakespeare lies, be present: and with thee<br>Let Fiction come, upon her vagrant wings<br>Wafting ten thousand colours through the air,<br>Which, by the glances of her magic eye,<br>She blends and shifts at will, through countless forms,<br>Her wild creation. Goddess of the lyre,<br>Which rules the accents of the moving sphere,<br>Wilt thou, eternal Harmony! descend<br>And join this festive train? for with thee comes<br>The guide, the guardian of their lovely sports,<br>Majestic Truth; and where Truth deigns to come,<br>Her sister Liberty will not be far.<br>Be present all ye Genii, who conduct<br>The wandering footsteps of the youthful bard,<br>New to your springs and shades: who touch his ear<br>With finer sounds: who heighten to his eye<br>The bloom of nature, and before him turn<br>The gayest, happiest attitude of things.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oft have the laws of each poetic strain<br>The critic-verse imploy'd; yet still unsung<br>Lay this prime subject, though importing most<br>A poet's name: for fruitless is the attempt,<br>By dull obedience and by creeping toil<br>Obscure to conquer the severe ascent<br>Of high Parnassus. Nature's kindling breath<br>Must fire the chosen genius; nature's hand<br>Must string his nerves, and imp his eagle-wings<br>Impatient of the painful steep, to soar<br>High as the summit; there to breathe at large<br>Æthereal air: with bards and sages old,<br>Immortal sons of praise. These flattering scenes<br>To this neglected labour court my song;<br>Yet not unconscious what a doubtful task<br>To paint the finest features of the mind,<br>And to most subtile and mysterious things<br>Give colour, strength, and motion. But the love<br>Of nature and the muses bids explore,<br>Through secret paths erewhile untrod by man,<br>The fair poetic region, to detect<br>Untasted springs, to drink inspiring draughts,<br>And shade my temples with unfading flowers<br>Cull'd from the laureate vale's profound recess,<br>Where never poet gain'd a wreath before.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">From heaven my strains begin; from heaven descends<br>The flame of genius to the human breast,<br>And love and beauty, and poetic joy<br>And inspiration. Ere the radiant sun<br>Sprang from the east, or 'mid the vault of night<br>The moon suspended her serener lamp;<br>Ere mountains, woods, or streams adorn'd the globe,<br>Or wisdom taught the sons of men her lore;<br>Then liv'd the almighty One: then, deep-retir'd<br>In his unfathom'd essence, view'd the forms,<br>The forms eternal of created things;<br>The radiant sun, the moon's nocturnal lamp,<br>The mountains, woods and streams, the rowling globe,<br>And wisdom's mien celestial. From the first<br>Of days, on them his love divine he fix'd,<br>His admiration: till in time compleat,<br>What he admir'd and lov'd, his vital smile<br>Unfolded into being. Hence the breath<br>Of life informing each organic frame,<br>Hence the green earth, and wild resounding waves;<br>Hence light and shade alternate; warmth and cold;<br>And clear autumnal skies and vernal showers,<br>And all the fair variety of things.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But not alike to every mortal eye<br>Is this great scene unveil'd. For since the claims<br>Of social life, to different labours urge<br>The active powers of man; with wise intent<br>The hand of nature on peculiar minds<br>Imprints a different byass, and to each<br>Decrees its province in the common toil.<br>To some she taught the fabric of the sphere,<br>The changeful moon, the circuit of the stars,<br>The golden zones of heaven: to some she gave<br>To weigh the moment of eternal things,<br>Of time, and space, and fate's unbroken chain,<br>And will's quick impulse: others by the hand<br>She led o'er vales and mountains, to explore<br>What healing virtue swells the tender veins<br>Of herbs and flowers; or what the beams of morn<br>Draw forth, distilling from the clifted rind<br>In balmy tears. . But some, to higher hopes<br>Were destin'd; some within a finer mould<br>She wrought, and temper'd with a purer flame.<br>To these the sire omnipotent unfolds<br>The world's harmonious volume, there to read<br>The transcript of himself. On every part<br>They trace the bright impressions of his hand:<br>In earth or air, the meadow's purple stores,<br>The moon's mild radiance, or the virgin's form<br>Blooming with rosy smiles, they see portray'd<br>That uncreated beauty, which delights<br>The mind supreme. They also feel her charms,<br>Enamour'd; they partake the eternal joy.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For as old Memnon's image, long renown'd<br>By fabling Nilus, to the quivering touch<br>Of Titan's ray, with each repulsive string<br>Consenting, sounded through the warbling air<br>Unbidden strains; even so did nature's hand<br>To certain species of external things,<br>Attune the finer organs of the mind:<br>So the glad impulse of congenial powers,<br>Or of sweet sound, or fair proportion'd form,<br>The grace of motion, or the bloom of light,<br>Thrills through imagination's tender frame,<br>From nerve to nerve: all naked and alive<br>They catch the spreading rays: till now the soul<br>At length discloses every tuneful spring,<br>To that harmonious movement from without<br>Responsive. Then the inexpressive strain<br>Diffuses its inchantment: fancy dreams<br>Of sacred fountains and Elysian groves,<br>And vales of bliss: the intellectual power<br>Bends from his awful throne a wondering ear,<br>And smiles: the passions, gently sooth'd away,<br>Sink to divine repose, and love and joy<br>Alone are waking; love and joy, serene<br>As airs that fan the summer. O! attend,<br>Whoe'er thou art, whom these delights can touch,<br>Whose candid bosom the refining love<br>Of nature warms, o! listen to my song;<br>And i will guide thee to her favourite walks,<br>And teach thy solitude her voice to hear,<br>And point her loveliest features to thy view.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Know then, whate'er of nature's pregnant stores,<br>Whate'er of mimic art's reflected forms<br>With love and admiration thus inflame<br>The powers of fancy, her delighted sons<br>To three illustrious orders have referr'd;<br>Three sister-graces, whom the painter's hand,<br>The poet's tongue confesses; the sublime,<br>The wonderful, the fair. I see them dawn!<br>I see the radiant visions, where they rise,<br>More lovely than when Lucifer displays<br>His beaming forehead through the gates of morn,<br>To lead the train of Phœbus and the spring.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Say, why was man so eminently rais'd<br>Amid the vast creation; why ordain'd<br>Through life and death to dart his piercing eye,<br>With thoughts beyond the limit of his frame;<br>But that the omnipotent might send him forth<br>In sight of mortal and immortal powers,<br>As on a boundless theatre, to run<br>The great career of justice; to exalt<br>His generous aim to all diviner deeds;<br>To chase each partial purpose from his breast;<br>And through the mists of passion and of sense,<br>And through the tossing tide of chance and pain,<br>To hold his course unfaultering, while the voice<br>Of truth and virtue, up the steep ascent<br>Of nature, calls him to his high reward,<br>The applauding smile of heaven? Else wherefore burns<br>In mortal bosoms this unquenched hope,<br>That breathes from day to day sublimer things,<br>And mocks possession? wherefore darts the mind,<br>With such resistless ardour to embrace<br>Majestic forms; impatient to be free,<br>Spurning the gross controul of wilful might;<br>Proud of the strong contention of her toils;<br>Proud to be daring? Who but rather turns<br>To heaven's broad fire his unconstrained view,<br>Than to the glimmering of a waxen flame?<br>Who that, from Alpine heights, his labouring eye<br>Shoots round the wide horizon, to survey<br>Nilus or Ganges rowling his bright wave<br>Through mountains, plains, through empires black with shade<br>And continents of sand; will turn his gaze<br>To mark the windings of a scanty rill<br>That murmurs at his feet? The high-born soul<br>Disdains to rest her heaven-aspiring wing<br>Beneath its native quarry. Tir'd of earth<br>And this diurnal scene, she springs aloft<br>Through fields of air; pursues the flying storm;<br>Rides on the vollied lightning through the heavens;<br>Or, yok'd with whirlwinds and the northern blast,<br>Sweeps the long tract of day. Then high she soars<br>The blue profound, and hovering round the sun<br>Beholds him pouring the redundant stream<br>Of light; beholds his unrelenting sway<br>Bend the reluctant planets to absolve<br>The fated rounds of time. Thence far effus'd<br>She darts her swiftness up the long career<br>Of devious comets; through its burning signs<br>Exulting measures the perennial wheel<br>Of nature, and looks back on all the stars,<br>Whose blended light, as with a milky zone,<br>Invests the orient. Now amaz'd she views<br>The empyreal waste, where happy spirits hold,<br>Beyond this concave heaven, their calm abode;<br>And fields of radiance, whose unfading light<br>Has travell'd the profound six thousand years,<br>Nor yet arrives in sight of mortal things.<br>Even on the barriers of the world untir'd<br>She meditates the eternal depth below;<br>Till half recoiling, down the headlong steep<br>She plunges; soon o'erwhelm'd and swallow'd up<br>In that immense of being. There her hopes<br>Rest at the sated goal. For from the birth<br>Of mortal man, the sovran maker said,<br>That not in humble nor in brief delight,<br>Not in the fading echoes of renown,<br>Power's purple robes, nor pleasure's flowery lap,<br>The soul should find enjoyment: but from these<br>Turning disdainful to an equal good,<br>Through all the ascent of things inlarge her view,<br>Till every bound at length should disappear,<br>And infinite perfection close the scene.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Call now to mind what high capacious powers<br>Lie folded up in man; how far beyond<br>The praise of mortals, may the eternal growth<br>Of nature to perfection half divine,<br>Expand the blooming soul? What pity then<br>Should sloth's unkindly fogs depress to earth<br>Her tender blossom; choak the streams of life,<br>And blast her spring! Far otherwise design'd<br>Almighty wisdom; nature's happy cares<br>The obedient heart far otherwise incline.<br>Witness the sprightly joy when aught unknown<br>Strikes the quick sense, and wakes each active power<br>To brisker measures: witness the neglect<br>Of all familiar prospects, though beheld<br>With transport once; the fond attentive gaze<br>Of young astonishment; the sober zeal<br>Of age, commenting on prodigious things.<br>For such the bounteous providence of heaven,<br>In every breast implanting this desire<br>Of objects new and strange, to urge us on<br>With unremitted labour to pursue<br>Those sacred stores that wait the ripening soul,<br>In Truth's exhaustless bosom. What need words<br>To paint its power? For this the daring youth<br>Breaks from his weeping mother's anxious arms,<br>In foreign climes to rove: the pensive sage,<br>Heedless of sleep, or midnight's harmful damp,<br>Hangs o'er the sickly taper; and untir'd<br>The virgin follows, with inchanted step,<br>The mazes of some wild and wondrous tale,<br>From morn to eve; unmindful of her form,<br>Unmindful of the happy dress that stole<br>The wishes of the youth, when every maid<br>With envy pin'd. Hence, finally, by night<br>The village-matron, round the blazing hearth,<br>Suspends the infant-audience with her tales,<br>Breathing astonishment! of witching rhimes,<br>And evil spirits; of the death-bed call<br>Of him who robb'd the widow, and devour'd<br>The orphan's portion; of unquiet souls<br>Risen from the grave to ease the heavy guilt<br>Of deeds in life conceal'd; of shapes that walk<br>At dead of night, and clank their chains, and wave<br>The torch of hell around the murderer's bed.<br>At every solemn pause the croud recoil<br>Gazing each other speechless, and congeal'd<br>With shivering sighs: till eager for the event,<br>Around the beldame all arrect they hang,<br>Each trembling heart with grateful terrors quell'd.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But lo! disclos'd in all her smiling pomp,<br>Where Beauty onward moving claims the verse<br>Her charms inspire: the freely-flowing verse<br>In thy immortal praise, o form divine,<br>Smooths her mellifluent stream. Thee, Beauty, thee<br>The regal dome, and thy enlivening ray<br>The mossy roofs adore: thou, better sun!<br>For ever beamest on the enchanted heart<br>Love, and harmonious wonder, and delight<br>Poetic. Brightest progeny of heaven!<br>How shall i trace thy features? where select<br>The roseate hues to emulate thy bloom?<br>Haste then, my song, through nature's wide expanse,<br>Haste then, and gather all her comeliest wealth,<br>Whate'er bright spoils the florid earth contains,<br>Whate'er the waters, or the liquid air,<br>To deck thy lovely labour. Wilt thou fly<br>With laughing Autumn to the Atlantic isles,<br>And range with him the Hesperian field, and see<br>Where'er his fingers touch the fruitful grove,<br>The branches shoot with gold; where'er his step<br>Marks the glad soil, the tender clusters grow<br>With purple ripeness, and invest each hill<br>As with the blushes of an evening sky?<br>Or wilt thou rather stoop thy vagrant plume,<br>Where gliding through his daughter's honour'd shades,<br>The smooth Penéus from his glassy flood<br>Reflects purpureal Tempe's pleasant scene?<br>Fair Tempe! haunt belov'd of sylvan powers,<br>Of Nymphs and Fauns; where in the golden age<br>They play'd in secret on the shady brink<br>With ancient Pan: while round their choral steps<br>Young Hours and genial Gales with constant hand<br>Shower'd blossoms, odours, shower'd ambrosial dews,<br>And spring's Elysian bloom. Her flowery store<br>To thee nor Tempe shall refuse; nor watch<br>Of winged Hydra guard Hesperian fruits<br>From thy free spoil. O bear then, unreprov'd,<br>Thy smiling treasures to the green recess<br>Where young Dione stays. With sweetest airs<br>Intice her sorth to lend her angel-form<br>For Beauty's honour'd image. Hither turn<br>Thy graceful footsteps; hither, gentle maid,<br>Incline thy polish'd forehead: let thy eyes<br>Effuse the mildness of their azure dawn;<br>And may the fanning breezes waft aside<br>Thy radiant locks: disclosing, as it bends<br>With airy softness from the marble neck,<br>The cheek fair-blooming, and the rosy lip,<br>Where winning smiles and pleasures sweet as love,<br>With sanctity and wisdom, tempering blend<br>Their soft allurement. Then the pleasing force<br>Of nature, and her kind parental care<br>Worthier i'd sing: then all the enamour'd youth,<br>With each admiring virgin, to my lyre<br>Should throng attentive, while i point on high<br>Where Beauty's living image, like the morn<br>That wakes in Zephyr's arms the blushing May,<br>Moves onward; or as Venus, when she stood<br>Effulgent on the pearly car, and smil'd,<br>Fresh from the deep, and conscious of her form,<br>To see the Tritons tune their vocal shells,<br>And each cœrulean sister of the flood<br>With loud acclaim attend her o'er the waves,<br>To seek the Idalian bower. Ye smiling band<br>Of youths and virgins, who through all the maze<br>Of young desire with rival-steps pursue<br>This charm of beauty; if the pleasing toil<br>Can yield a moment's respite, hither turn<br>Your favourable ear, and trust my words.<br>I do not mean to wake the gloomy form<br>Of Superstition dress'd in Wisdom's garb,<br>To damp your tender hopes; i do not mean<br>To bid the jealous thunderer fire the heavens,<br>Or shapes infernal rend the groaning earth<br>To fright you from your joys, my cheerful song<br>With better omens calls you to the field,<br>Pleas'd with your generous ardour in the chace,<br>And warm like you. Then tell me, for ye know,<br>Does beauty ever deign to dwell where health<br>And active use are strangers? Is her charm<br>Confess'd in aught, whose most peculiar ends<br>Are lame and fruitless? Or did nature mean<br>This pleasing call the herald of a lye;<br>To hide the shame of discord and disease,<br>And catch with fair hypocrisy the heart<br>Of idle faith? O no! with better cares<br>The indulgent mother, conscious how infirm<br>Her offspring tread the paths of good and ill,<br>By this illustrious image, in each kind<br>Still most illustrious where the object holds<br>Its native powers most perfect, she by this<br>Illumes the headstrong impulse of desire,<br>And sanctifies his choice. The generous glebe<br>Whose bosom smiles with verdure, the clear tract<br>Of streams delicious to the thirsty soul,<br>The bloom of nectar'd fruitage ripe to sense,<br>And every charm of animated things,<br>Are only pledges of a state sincere,<br>The integrity and order of their frame,<br>When all is well within, and every end<br>Accomplish'd. Thus was beauty sent from heaven,<br>The lovely ministress of truth and good<br>In this dark world: for truth and good are one,<br>And beauty dwells in them, and they in her,<br>With like participation. Wherefore then,<br>O sons of earth! would ye dissolve the tye?<br>O wherefore, with a rash impetuous aim,<br>Seek ye those flowery joys with which the hand<br>Of lavish fancy paints each flattering scene<br>Where beauty seems to dwell, nor once inquire<br>Where is the sanction of eternal truth,<br>Or where the seal of undeceitful good,<br>To save your search from folly! Wanting these,<br>Lo! beauty withers in your void embrace,<br>And with the glittering of an idiot's toy<br>Did fancy mock your vows. Nor let the gleam<br>Of youthful hope that shines upon your hearts,<br>Be chill'd or clouded at this awful task,<br>To learn the lore of undeceitful good,<br>And truth eternal. Though the poisonous charms<br>Of baleful superstition guide the feet<br>Of servile numbers, through a dreary way<br>To their abode, through desarts, thorns and mire;<br>And leave the wretched pilgrim all forlorn<br>To muse at last, amid the ghostly gloom<br>Of graves, and hoary vaults, and cloister'd cells;<br>To walk with spectres through the midnight shade,<br>And to the screaming owl's accursed song<br>Attune the dreadful workings of his heart;<br>Yet be not ye dismay'd. A gentler star<br>Your lovely search illumines. From the grove<br>Where wisdom talk'd with her Athenian sons,<br>Could my ambitious hand intwine a wreath<br>Of Plato's olive with the Mantuan bay,<br>Then should my powerful verse at once dispell<br>Those monkish horrors: then in light divine<br>Disclose the Elysian prospect, where the steps<br>Of those whom nature charms, through blooming walks,<br>Through fragrant mountains and poetic streams,<br>Amid the train of sages, heroes, bards,<br>Led by their winged Genius and the choir<br>Of laurell'd science and harmonious art,<br>Proceed exulting to the eternal shrine,<br>Where truth conspicuous with her sister-twins,<br>The undivided partners of her sway,<br>With good and beauty reigns. O let not us,<br>Lull'd by luxurious pleasure's languid strain,<br>Or crouching to the frowns of bigot-rage,<br>O let us not a moment pause to join<br>That godlike band. And if the gracious power<br>Who first awaken'd my untutor'd song,<br>Will to my invocation breathe anew<br>The tuneful spirit; then through all our paths,<br>Ne'er shall the sound of this devoted lyre<br>Be wanting; whether on the rosy mead,<br>When summer smiles, to warn the melting heart<br>Of luxury's allurement; whether firm<br>Against the torrent and the stubborn hill<br>To urge bold virtue's unremitted nerve,<br>And wake the strong divinity of soul<br>That conquers chance and fate; or whether struck<br>For sounds of triumph, to proclaim her toils<br>Upon the lofty summit, round her brow<br>To twine the wreath of incorruptive praise;<br>To trace her hallow'd light through future worlds,<br>And bless heaven's image in the heart of man.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus with a faithful aim have we presum'd,<br>Adventurous, to delineate nature's form;<br>Whether in vast, majestic pomp array'd,<br>Or drest for pleasing wonder, or serene<br>In beauty's rosy smile. It now remains,<br>Through various being's fair-proportion'd scale,<br>To trace the rising lustre of her charms,<br>From their first twilight, shining forth at length<br>To full meridian splendour. Of degree<br>The least and lowliest, in the effusive warmth<br>Of colours mingling with a random blaze,<br>Doth beauty dwell. Then higher in the line<br>And variation of determin'd shape,<br>Where truth's eternal measures mark the bound<br>Of circle, cube, or sphere. The third ascent<br>Unites this varied symmetry of parts<br>With colour's bland allurement; as the pearl<br>Shines in the concave of its azure bed,<br>And painted shells indent their speckled wreath.<br>Then more attractive rise the blooming forms<br>Through which the breath of nature has infus'd<br>Her genial power to draw with pregnant veins<br>Nutritious moisture from the bounteous earth,<br>In fruit and seed prolific: thus the flowers<br>Their purple honours with the spring resume;<br>And such the stately tree which autumn bends<br>With blushing treasures. But more lovely still<br>Is nature's charm, where to the full consent<br>Of complicated members, to the bloom<br>Of colour, and the vital change of growth,<br>Life's holy flame and piercing sense are given,<br>And active motion speaks the temper'd soul:<br>So moves the bird of Juno; so the steed<br>With rival ardour beats the dusty plain,<br>And faithful dogs with eager airs of joy<br>Salute their fellows. Thus doth beauty dwell<br>There most conspicuous, even in outward shape,<br>Where dawns the high expression of a mind:<br>By steps conducting our inraptur'd search<br>To that eternal origin, whose power,<br>Through all the unbounded symmetry of things,<br>Like rays effulging from the parent sun,<br>This endless mixture of her charms diffus'd.<br>Mind, mind alone, (bear witness, earth and heaven!)<br>The living fountains in itself contains<br>Of beauteous and sublime: here hand in hand,<br>Sit paramount the Graces; here inthron'd,<br>Cœlestial Venus, with divinest airs,<br>Invites the soul to never-fading joy.<br>Look then abroad through nature, to the range<br>Of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres<br>Wheeling unshaken through the void immense;<br>And speak, o man! does this capacious scene<br>With half that kindling majesty dilate<br>Thy strong conception, as when Brutus rose<br>Refulgent from the stroke of Cæsar's fate,<br>Amid the croud of patriots; and his arm<br>Aloft extending, like eternal Jove<br>When guilt brings down the thunder, call'd aloud<br>On Tully's name, and shook his crimson steel,<br>And bade the father of his country, hail!<br>For lo! the tyrant prostrate on the dust,<br>And Rome again is free! Is aught so fair<br>In all the dewy landscapes of the spring,<br>In the bright eye of Hesper or the morn,<br>In nature's fairest forms, is aught so fair<br>As virtuous friendship? as the candid blush<br>Of him who strives with fortune to be just?<br>The graceful tear that streams for others woes?<br>Or the mild majesty of private life,<br>Where peace with ever-blooming olive crowns<br>The gate; where honour's liberal hands effuse<br>Unenvied treasures, and the snowy wings<br>Of innocence and love protect the scene?<br>Once more search, undismay'd, the dark profound<br>Where nature works in secret; view the beds<br>Of mineral treasure, and the eternal vault<br>That bounds the hoary ocean; trace the forms<br>Of atoms moving with incessant change<br>Their elemental round; behold the seeds<br>Of being, and the energy of life<br>Kindling the mass with ever-active flame:<br>Then to the secrets of the working mind<br>Attentive turn; from dim oblivion call<br>Her fleet, ideal band; and bid them, go!<br>Break through time's barrier, and o'ertake the hour<br>That saw the heavens created: then declare<br>If aught were found in those external scenes<br>To move thy wonder now. For what are all<br>The forms which brute, unconscious matter wears,<br>Greatness of bulk, or symmetry of parts?<br>Not reaching to the heart, soon feeble grows<br>The superficial impulse; dull their charms,<br>And satiate soon, and pall the languid eye.<br>Not so the moral species, nor the powers<br>Of genius and design; the ambitious mind<br>There sees herself: by these congenial forms<br>Touch'd and awaken'd, with intenser act<br>She bends each nerve, and meditates well-pleas'd<br>Her features in the mirror. For of all<br>The inhabitants of earth, to man alone<br>Creative wisdom gave to lift his eye<br>To truth's eternal measures; thence to frame<br>The sacred laws of action and of will,<br>Discerning justice from unequal deeds,<br>And temperance from folly. But beyond<br>This energy of truth, whose dictates bind<br>Assenting reason, the benignant sire,<br>To deck the honour'd paths of just and good,<br>Has added bright imagination's rays:<br>Where virtue, rising from the awful depth<br>Of truth's mysterious bosom, doth forsake<br>The unadorn'd condition of her birth;<br>And dress'd by fancy in ten thousand hues,<br>Assumes a various feature, to attract,<br>With charms responsive to each gazer's eye,<br>The hearts of men. Amid his rural walk,<br>The ingenuous youth, whom solitude inspires<br>With purest wishes, from the pensive shade<br>Beholds her moving, like a virgin-muse<br>That wakes her lyre to some indulgent theme<br>Of harmony and wonder: while among<br>The herd of servile minds, her strenuous form<br>Indignant flashes on the patriot's eye,<br>And through the rolls of memory appeals<br>To ancient honour, or in act serene,<br>Yet watchful, raises the majestic sword<br>Of public power, from dark ambition's reach<br>To guard the sacred volume of the laws.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Genius of ancient Greece! whose faithful steps<br>Well-pleas'd i follow through the sacred paths<br>Of nature and of science; nurse divine<br>Of all heroic deeds and fair desires!<br>O! let the breath of thy extended praise<br>Inspire my kindling bosom to the height<br>Of this untempted theme. Nor be my thoughts<br>Presumptuous counted, if amid the calm<br>That sooths this vernal evening into smiles,<br>I steal impatient from the sordid haunts<br>Of strife and low ambition, to attend<br>Thy sacred presence in the sylvan shade,<br>By their malignant footsteps ne'er profan'd.<br>Descend, propitious! to my favour'd eye;<br>Such in thy mien, thy warm, exalted air,<br>As when the Persian tyrant, foil'd and stung<br>With shame and desperation, gnash'd his teeth<br>To see thee rend the pageants of his throne;<br>And at the lightning of thy lifted spear<br>Crouch'd like a slave. Bring all thy martial spoils,<br>Thy palms, thy laurels, thy triumphal songs,<br>Thy smiling band of arts, thy godlike sires<br>Of civil wisdom, thy heroic youth<br>Warm from the schools of glory. Guide my way<br>walk, the green retreats<br>Of Academus, and the thymy vale,<br>Where oft inchanted with Socratic sounds,<br>Ilissus pure devolv'd his tuneful stream<br>In gentler murmurs. From the blooming store<br>Of these auspicious fields, may i unblam'd<br>Transplant some living blossoms to adorn<br>My native clime: while far above the flight<br>Of fancy's plume aspiring, i unlock<br>The springs of ancient wisdom; while i join<br>Thy name, thrice honour'd! with the immortal praise<br>Of nature, while to my compatriot youth<br>I point the high example of thy sons,<br>And tune to Attic themes the British lyre.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Mark+Akenside">Mark Akenside</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=454971" data-title="The Pleasures of Imagination: Book The First de Mark Akenside" data-description="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 gent..."></div> </div> </div>

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