<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=454974" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Pleasures of Imagination: Book The Third</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">What wonder therefore, since the indearing ties<br>Of passion link the universal kind<br>Of man so close, what wonder if to search<br>This common nature through the various change<br>Of sex, and age, and fortune, and the frame<br>Of each peculiar, draw the busy mind<br>With unresisted charms? The spacious west,<br>And all the teeming regions of the south<br>Hold not a quarry, to the curious flight<br>Of knowledge, half so tempting or so fair,<br>As man to man. Nor only where the smiles<br>Of love invite; nor only where the applause<br>Of cordial honour turns the attentive eye<br>On virtue's graceful deeds. For since the course<br>Of things external acts in different ways<br>On human apprehensions, as the hand<br>Of nature temper'd to a different frame.<br>Peculiar minds; so haply where the powers<br>Of fancy neither lessen nor enlarge<br>The images of things, but paint in all<br>Their genuine hues, the features which they wore<br>In nature; there opinion will be true,<br>And action right. For action treads the path<br>In which opinion says he follows good,<br>Or flies from evil; and opinion gives<br>Report of good or evil, as the scene<br>Was drawn by fancy, lovely or deform'd:<br>Thus her report can never there be true<br>Where fancy cheats the intellectual eye,<br>With glaring colours and distorted lines.<br>Is there a man, who at the sound of death<br>Sees ghastly shapes of terror conjur'd up,<br>And black before him; nought but death-bed groans<br>And fearful prayers, and plunging from the brink<br>Of light and being, down the gloomy air,<br>An unknown depth? Alas! in such a mind,<br>If no bright forms of excellence attend<br>The image of his country; nor the pomp<br>Of sacred senates, nor the guardian voice<br>Of justice on her throne, nor aught that wakes<br>The conscious bosom with a patriot's flame;<br>Will not opinion tell him, that to die,<br>Or stand the hazard, is a greater ill<br>Than to betray his country? And in act<br>Will he not chuse to be a wretch and live?<br>Here vice begins then. From the inchanting cup<br>Which fancy holds to all, the unwary thirst<br>Of youth oft swallows a Circæan draught,<br>That sheds a baleful tincture o'er the eye<br>Of reason, till no longer he discerns,<br>And only guides to err. Then revel forth<br>A furious band that spurn him from the throne;<br>And all is uproar. Thus ambition grasps<br>The empire of the soul: thus pale revenge<br>Unsheaths her murderous dagger; and the hands<br>Of lust and rapine, with unholy arts,<br>Watch to o'erturn the barrier of the laws<br>That keeps them from their prey: thus all the plagues<br>The wicked bear, or o'er the trembling scene<br>The tragic muse discloses, under shapes<br>Of honour, safety, pleasure, ease or pomp,<br>Stole first into the mind. Yet not by all<br>Those lying forms which fancy in the brain<br>Engenders, are the kindling passions driven,<br>To guilty deeds; nor reason bound in chains,<br>That vice alone may lord it: oft adorn'd<br>With solemn pageants, folly mounts the throne,<br>And plays her idiot-anticks, like a queen.<br>A thousand garbs she wears; a thousand ways<br>She wheels her giddy empire.—Lo! thus far<br>With bold adventure, to the Mantuan lyre<br>I sing of nature's charms, and touch well-pleas'd<br>A stricter note: now haply must my song<br>Unbend her serious measure, and reveal<br>In lighter strains, how folly's aukward arts<br>Excite impetuous laughter's gay rebuke;<br>The sportive province of the comic muse.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">See! in what crouds the uncouth forms advance:<br>Each would outstrip the other, each prevent<br>Our careful search, and offer to your gaze,<br>Unask'd, his motley features. Wait awhile,<br>My curious friends! and let us first arrange<br>In proper order your promiscuous throng.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Behold the foremost band; of slender thought,<br>And easy faith; whom flattering fancy sooths<br>With lying spectres, in themselves to view<br>Illustrious forms of excellence and good,<br>That scorn the mansion. With exulting hearts<br>They spread their spurious treasures to the sun,<br>And bid the world admire! but chief the glance<br>Of wishful envy draws their joy-bright eyes,<br>And lists with self-applause each lordly brow.<br>In number boundless as the blooms of spring,<br>Behold their glaring idols, empty shades<br>By fancy gilded o'er, and then set up<br>For adoration. Some in learning's garb,<br>With formal band, and sable-cinctur'd gown,<br>And rags of mouldy volumes. Some elate<br>With martial splendor, steely pikes and swords<br>Of costly frame, and gay Phœnician robes<br>Inwrought with flowery gold, assume the port<br>Of stately valour: listening by his side<br>There stands a female form; to her, with looks<br>Of earnest import, pregnant with amaze,<br>He talks of deadly deeds, of breaches, storms,<br>And sulphurous mines, and ambush: then at once<br>Breaks off, and smiles to see her look so pale,<br>And asks some wondering question of her fears.<br>Others of graver mien; behold, adorn'd<br>With holy ensigns, how sublime they move,<br>And bending oft their sanctimonious eyes<br>Take homage of the simple-minded throng;<br>Ambassadors of heaven! Nor much unlike<br>Is he whose visage, in the lazy mist<br>That mantles every feature, hides a brood<br>Of politic conceits; of whispers, nods,<br>And hints deep omen'd with unwieldy schemes,<br>And dark portents of state. Ten thousand more,<br>Prodigious habits and tumultuous tongues,<br>Pour dauntless in and swell the boastful band.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then comes the second order; all who seek<br>The debt of praise, where watchful unbelief<br>Darts through the thin pretence her squinting eye<br>On some retir'd appearance which belies<br>The boasted virtue, or annuls the applause<br>That justice else would pay. Here side by side<br>I see two leaders of the solemn train<br>Approaching: one a female old and grey,<br>With eyes demure, and wrinkle-furrow'd brow,<br>Pale as the cheeks of death; yet still she stuns<br>The sickening audience with a nauseous tale;<br>How many youths her myrtle-chains have worn,<br>How many virgins at her triumphs pin'd!<br>Yet how resolv'd she guards her cautious heart;<br>Such is her terror at the risques of love,<br>And man's seducing tongue! The other seems<br>A bearded sage, ungentle in his mien,<br>And sordid all his habit; peevish want<br>Grins at his heels, while down the gazing throng<br>He stalks, resounding in magnific phrase<br>The vanity of riches, the contempt<br>Of pomp and power. Be prudent in your zeal,<br>Ye grave associates! let the silent grace<br>Of her who blushes at the fond regard<br>Her charms inspire, more eloquent unfold<br>The praise of spotless honour: let the man<br>Whose eye regards not his illustrious pomp<br>And ample store, but as indulgent streams<br>To cheer the barren soil and spread the fruits<br>Of joy, let him by juster measures fix<br>The price of riches and the end of power.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Another tribe succeeds; deluded long<br>By fancy's dazling optics, these behold<br>The images of some peculiar things<br>With brighter hues resplendent, and portray'd<br>With features nobler far than e'er adorn'd<br>Their genuine objects. Hence the fever'd heart<br>Pants with delirious hope for tinsel charms;<br>Hence oft obtrusive on the eye of scorn,<br>Untimely zeal her witless pride betrays!<br>And serious manhood from the towering aim<br>Of wisdom, stoops to emulate the boast<br>Of childish toil. Behold yon mystic form,<br>Bedeck'd with feathers, insects, weeds and shells!<br>Not with intenser view the Samian sage<br>Bent his fixt eye on heaven's intenser fires,<br>When first the order of that radiant scene<br>Swell'd his exulting thought, than this surveys<br>A muckworm's entrails or a spider's sang.<br>Next him a youth, with flowers and myrtles crown'd,<br>Attends that virgin form, and blushing kneels,<br>With fondest gesture and a suppliant's tongue,<br>To win her coy regard: adieu, for him,<br>The dull ingagements of the bustling world!<br>Adieu the sick impertinence of praise!<br>And hope, and action! for with her alone,<br>By streams and shades, to steal these sighing hours,<br>Is all he asks, and all that fate can give!<br>Thee too, facetious Momion, wandering here,<br>Thee, dreaded censor, oft have i beheld<br>Bewilder'd unawares: alas! too long<br>Flush'd with thy comic triumphs and the spoils<br>Of sly derision! till on every side<br>Hurling thy random bolts, offended truth<br>Assign'd thee here thy station with the slaves<br>Of folly. Thy once formidable name<br>Shall grace her humble records, and be heard<br>In scoffs and mockery bandied from the lips<br>Of all the vengeful brotherhood around,<br>So oft the patient victims of thy scorn.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But now, ye gay! to whom indulgent fate,<br>Of all the muse's empire hath assign'd<br>The fields of folly, hither each advance<br>Your sickles; here the teeming soil affords<br>Its richest growth. A favourite brood appears;<br>In whom the dæmon, with a mother's joy,<br>Views all her charms reflected, all her cares<br>At full repay'd. Ye most illustrious band!<br>Who, scorning reason's tame, pedantic rules,<br>And order's vulgar bondage, never meant<br>For souls sublime as yours, with generous zeal<br>Pay vice the reverence virtue long usurp'd,<br>And yield deformity the fond applause<br>Which beauty wont to claim; forgive my song,<br>That for the blushing diffidence of youth,<br>It shuns the unequal province of your praise.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus far triumphant in the pleasing guile<br>Of bland imagination, folly's train<br>Have dar'd our search: but now a dastard-kind<br>Advance reluctant, and with faultering feet<br>Shrink from the gazer's eye: infeebled hearts<br>Whom fancy chills with visionary fears,<br>Or bends to servile tameness with conceits<br>Of shame, of evil, or of base defect,<br>Fantastic and delusive. Here the slave<br>Who droops abash'd when sullen pomp surveys<br>His humbler habit; here the trembling wretch<br>Unnerv'd and struck with terror's icy bolts,<br>Spent in weak wailings, drown'd in shameful tears,<br>At every dream of danger: here subdued<br>By frontless laughter and the hardy scorn<br>Of old, unfeeling vice, the abject soul,<br>Who blushing half resigns the candid praise<br>Of temperance and honour; half disowns<br>A freeman's hatred of tyrannic pride;<br>And hears with sickly smiles the venal mouth<br>With foulest licence mock the patriot's name.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Last of the motley bands on whom the power<br>Of gay derision bends her hostile aim,<br>Is that where shameful ignorance presides.<br>Beneath her sordid banners, lo! they march,<br>Like blind and lame. Whate'er their doubtful hands<br>Attempt, confusion straight appears behind,<br>And troubles all the work. Through many a maze,<br>Perplex'd they struggle, changing every path,<br>O'erturning every purpose; then at last<br>Sit down dismay'd, and leave the entangled scene<br>For scorn to sport with. Such then is the abode<br>Of folly in the mind; and such the shapes<br>In which she governs her obsequious train.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Through every scene of ridicule in things<br>To lead the tenour of my devious lay;<br>Through every swift occasion, which the hand<br>Of laughter points at, when the mirthful sting<br>Distends her sallying nerves and choaks her tongue;<br>What were it but to count each crystal drop<br>Which morning's dewy fingers on the blooms<br>Of May distill? Suffice it to have said,<br>Where'er the power of ridicule displays<br>Her quaint-ey'd visage, some incongruous form,<br>Some stubborn dissonance of things combin'd,<br>Strikes on the quick observer: whether pomp,<br>Or praise, or beauty, mix their partial claim<br>Where sordid fashions, where ignoble deeds,<br>Where foul deformity are wont to dwell;<br>Or whether these with violation loath'd,<br>Invade resplendent pomp's imperious mien,<br>The charms of beauty, or the boast of praise.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ask we for what fair end, the almighty sire<br>In mortal bosoms wakes this gay contempt,<br>These grateful stings of laughter, from disgust<br>Educing pleasure? Wherefore, but to aid<br>The tardy steps of reason, and at once<br>By this prompt impulse urge us to depress<br>The giddy aims of folly? Though the light<br>Of truth slow-dawning on the inquiring mind,<br>At length unfolds, through many a subtile tie,<br>How these uncouth disorders end at last<br>In public evil! yet benignant heaven,<br>Conscious how dim the dawn of truth appears<br>To thousands; conscious what a scanty pause<br>From labours and from care, the wider lot<br>Of humble life affords for studious thought<br>To scan the maze of nature; therefore stamp'd<br>The glaring scenes with characters of scorn,<br>As broad, as obvious, to the passing clown,<br>As to the letter'd sage's curious eye.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Such are the various aspects of the mind—<br>Some heavenly genius, whose unclouded thoughts<br>Attain that secret harmony which blends<br>The æthereal spirit with its mold of clay;<br>O! teach me to reveal the grateful charm<br>That searchless nature o'er the sense of man<br>Diffuses, to behold, in lifeless things,<br>The inexpressive semblance of himself,<br>Of thought and passion. Mark the sable woods<br>That shade sublime yon mountain's nodding brow;<br>With what religious awe the solemn scene<br>Commands your steps! as if the reverend form<br>Of Minos or of Numa should forsake<br>The Elysian seats, and down the embowering glade<br>Move to your pausing eye! Behold the expanse<br>Of yon gay landscape, where the silver clouds<br>Flit o'er the heavens before the sprightly breeze:<br>Now their grey cincture skirts the doubtful sun;<br>Now streams of splendor, through their opening veil<br>Effulgent, sweep from off the gilded lawn<br>The aërial shadows; on the curling brook,<br>And on the shady margin's quivering leaves<br>With quickest lustre glancing; while you view<br>The prospect, say, within your cheerful breast<br>Plays not the lively sense of winning mirth<br>With clouds and sun-shine chequer'd, while the round<br>Of social converse, to the inspiring tongue<br>Of some gay nymph amid her subject train,<br>Moves all obsequious? Whence is this effect,<br>This kindred power of such discordant things?<br>Or flows their semblance from that mystic tone<br>To which the new-born mind's harmonious powers<br>At first were strung? Or rather from the links<br>Which artful custom twines around her frame?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For when the different images of things<br>By chance combin'd, have struck the attentive soul<br>With deeper impulse, or connected long,<br>Have drawn her frequent eye; howe'er distinct<br>The external scenes, yet oft the ideas gain<br>From that conjunction an eternal tie,<br>And sympathy unbroken. Let the mind<br>Recall one partner of the various league,<br>Immediate, lo! the firm confederates rise,<br>And each his former station strait resumes:<br>One movement governs the consenting throng,<br>And all at once with rosy pleasure shine,<br>Or all are sadden'd with the glooms of care.<br>'Twas thus, if ancient fame the truth unfold,<br>Two faithful needles, from the informing touch<br>Of the same parent-stone, together drew<br>Its mystic virtue, and at first conspir'd<br>With fatal impulse quivering to the pole:<br>Then, though disjoin'd by kingdoms, though the main<br>Rowl'd its broad surge betwixt, and different stars<br>Beheld their wakeful motions, yet preserv'd<br>The former friendship, and remember'd still<br>The alliance of their birth: whate'er the line<br>Which one possess'd, nor pause, nor quiet knew<br>The sure associate, ere with trembling speed<br>He found its path and fix'd unnerring there.<br>Such is the secret union, when we feel<br>A song, a flower, a name, at once restore<br>Those long connected scenes where first they mov'd<br>The attention: backward through her mazy walks<br>Guiding the wanton fancy to her scope,<br>To temples, courts or fields; with all the band<br>Of painted forms, of passions and designs<br>Attendant: whence, if pleasing in itself,<br>The prospect from that sweet accession gains<br>Redoubled influence o'er the listening mind.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">By these mysterious ties the busy power<br>Of memory her ideal train preserves<br>Intire; or when they would elude her watch,<br>Reclaims their fleeting footsteps from the waste<br>Of dark oblivion; thus collecting all<br>The various forms of being to present,<br>Before the curious aim of mimic art,<br>Their largest choice: like spring's unfolded blooms<br>Exhaling sweetness, that the skillful bee<br>May taste at will, from their selected spoils<br>To work her dulcet food. For not the expanse<br>Of living lakes in summer's noontide calm,<br>Reflects the bordering shade, and sun-bright heavens<br>With fairer semblance; not the sculptur'd gold<br>More faithful keeps the graver's lively trace,<br>Than he whose birth the sister powers of art<br>Propitious view'd, and from his genial star<br>Shed influence to the seeds of fancy kind;<br>Than his attemper'd bosom must preserve<br>The seal of nature. There alone unchang'd,<br>Her form remains. The balmy walks of May<br>There breathe perennial sweets: the trembling chord<br>Resounds for ever in the abstracted car,<br>Melodious: and the virgin's radiant eye,<br>Superior to disease, to grief, and time,<br>Shines with unbating lustre. Thus at length<br>Indow'd with all that nature can bestow,<br>The child of fancy oft in silence bends<br>O'er these mixt treasures of his pregnant breast,<br>With conscious pride. From them he oft resolves<br>To frame he knows not what excelling things;<br>And win he knows not what sublime reward<br>Of praise and wonder. By degrees, the mind<br>Feels her young nerves dilate: the plastic powers<br>Labour for action: blind emotions heave<br>His bosom; and with loveliest frenzy caught,<br>From earth to heaven he rowls his daring eye,<br>From heaven to earth. Anon ten thousand shapes,<br>Like spectres trooping to the wisard's call,<br>Flit swift before him. From the womb of earth,<br>From ocean's bed they come: the eternal heavens<br>Disclose their splendors, and the dark abyss<br>Pours out her births unknown: With fixed gaze<br>He marks the rising phantoms. Now compares<br>Their different forms; now blends them, now divides,<br>Inlarges and extenuates by turns;<br>Opposes, ranges in fantastic bands,<br>And infinitely varies. Hither now,<br>Now thither fluctuates his inconstant aim,<br>With endless choice perplex'd. At length his plan<br>Begins to open. Lucid order dawns;<br>And as from Chaos old the jarring seeds<br>Of nature at the voice divine repair'd<br>Each to its place, till rosy earth unveil'd<br>Her fragrant bosom, and the joyful sun<br>Sprung up the blue serene; by swift degrees<br>Thus disentangled, his entire design<br>Emerges. Colours mingle, features join,<br>And lines converge: the fainter parts retire;<br>The fairer eminent in light advance;<br>And every image on its neighbour smiles.<br>A while he stands, and with a father's joy<br>Contemplates. Then with Promethéan art,<br>Into its proper vehicle he breathes<br>The fair conception; which, imbodied thus,<br>And permanent, becomes to eyes or ears<br>An object ascertain'd: while thus inform'd,<br>The various organs of his mimic skill,<br>The consonance of sounds, the featur'd rock,<br>The shadowy picture and impassion'd verse,<br>Beyond their proper powers attract the soul<br>By that expressive semblance, while in sight<br>Of nature's great original we scan<br>The lively child of art; while line by line,<br>And feature after feature we refer<br>To that sublime exemplar whence it stole<br>Those animating charms. Thus beauty's palm<br>Betwixt them wavering hangs: applauding love<br>Doubts where to chuse; and mortal man aspires<br>To tempt creative praise. As when a cloud<br>Of gathering hail with limpid crusts of ice<br>Inclos'd and obvious to the beaming sun,<br>Collects his large effulgence; strait the heavens<br>With equal flames present on either hand<br>The radiant visage: Persia stands at gaze,<br>Appall'd; and on the brink of Ganges doubts<br>The snowy-vested seer, in Mithra's name,<br>To which the fragrance of the south shall burn,<br>To which his warbled orisons ascend.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Such various bliss the well-tun'd heart enjoys,<br>Favour'd of heaven! while plung'd in sordid cares,<br>The unfeeling vulgar mocks the boon divine:<br>And harsh austerity, from whose rebuke<br>Young love and smiling wonder shrink away<br>Abash'd and chill of heart, with sager frowns<br>Condemns the fair inchantment. On my strain,<br>Perhaps even now, some cold, fastidious judge<br>Casts a disdainful eye; and calls my toil,<br>And calls the love and beauty which i sing,<br>The dream of folly. Thou, grave censor! say,<br>Is beauty then a dream, because the glooms<br>Of dulness hang too heavy on thy sense,<br>To let her shine upon thee? So the man<br>Whose eye ne'er open'd on the light of heaven,<br>Might smile with scorn while raptur'd vision tells<br>Of the gay-colour'd radiance flushing bright<br>O'er all creation. From the wise be far<br>Such gross unhallow'd pride; nor needs my song<br>Descend so low; but rather now unfold,<br>If human thought could reach, or words unfold,<br>By what mysterious fabric of the mind,<br>The deep-felt joys and harmony of sound<br>Result from airy motion; and from shape<br>The lovely phantoms of sublime and fair.<br>By what fine ties hath God connected things<br>When present in the mind, which in themselves<br>Have no connection? Sure the rising sun<br>O'er the cærulean convex of the sea,<br>With equal brightness and with equal warmth<br>Might rowl his fiery orb; nor yet the soul<br>Thus feel her frame expanded, and her powers<br>Exulting in the splendor she beholds;<br>Like a young conqueror moving through the pomp<br>Of some triumphal day. When join'd at eve,<br>Soft-murmuring streams and gales of gentlest breath<br>Melodious Philomela's wakeful strain<br>Attemper, could not man's discerning ear<br>Through all its tones the sympathy pursue;<br>Nor yet this breath divine of nameless joy<br>Steal through his veins and fan the awaken'd heart,<br>Mild as the breeze, yet rapturous as the song.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But were not nature still endow'd at large<br>With all which life requires, though unadorn'd<br>With such inchantment? Wherefore then her form<br>So exquisitely fair? her breath perfum'd<br>With such æthereal sweetness? whence her voice<br>Inform'd at will to raise or to depress<br>The impassion'd soul? and whence the robes of light<br>Which thus invest her with more lovely pomp<br>Than fancy can describe? Whence but from thee,<br>O source divine of ever-flowing love,<br>And thy unmeasur'd goodness? Not content<br>With every food of life to nourish man,<br>By kind illusions of the wondering sense<br>Thou mak'st all nature beauty to his eye,<br>Or music to his ear: well-pleas'd he scans<br>The goodly prospect; and with inward smiles<br>Treads the gay verdure of the painted plain;<br>Beholds the azure canopy of heaven,<br>And living lamps that over-arch his head<br>With more than regal splendor; bends his ears<br>To the full choir of water, air, and earth;<br>Nor heeds the pleasing error of his thought,<br>Nor doubts the painted green or azure arch,<br>Nor questions more the music's mingling sounds<br>Than space, or motion, or eternal time;<br>So sweet he feels their influence to attract<br>The fixed soul; to brighten the dull glooms<br>Of care, and make the destin'd road of life<br>Delightful to his feet. So fables tell,<br>The adventurous heroe, bound on hard exploits,<br>Beholds with glad surprise, by secret spells<br>Of some kind sage, the patron of his toils,<br>A visionary paradise disclos'd<br>Amid the dubious wild: with streams, and shades,<br>And airy songs, the enchanted landscape smiles,<br>Cheers his long labours and renews his frame.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">What then is taste, but these internal powers<br>Active, and strong, and feelingly alive<br>To each fine impulse? a discerning sense<br>Of decent and sublime, with quick disgust<br>From things deform'd, or disarrang'd, or gross<br>In species? This, nor gems, nor stores of gold,<br>Nor purple state, nor culture can bestow;<br>But God alone, when first his active hand<br>Imprints the secret byass of the soul.<br>He, mighty parent! wise and just in all,<br>Free as the vital breeze or light of heaven,<br>Reveals the charms of nature. Ask the swain<br>Who journeys homeward from a summer day's<br>Long labour, why, forgetful of his toils<br>And due repose, he loiters to behold<br>The sunshine gleaming as through amber clouds,<br>O'er all the western sky; full soon, I ween,<br>His rude expression and untutor'd airs,<br>Beyond the power of language, will unfold<br>The form of beauty smiling at his heart,<br>How lovely! how commanding! But though heaven<br>In every breast hath sown these early seeds<br>Of love and admiration, yet in vain,<br>Without fair culture's kind parental aid,<br>Without inlivening suns, and genial showers,<br>And shelter from the blast, in vain we hope<br>The tender plant should rear its blooming head,<br>Or yield the harvest promis'd in its spring.<br>Nor yet will every soil with equal stores<br>Repay the tiller's labour; or attend<br>His will, obsequious, whether to produce<br>The olive or the laurel. Different minds<br>Incline to different objects: one pursues<br>The vast alone, the wonderful, the wild;<br>Another sighs for harmony, and grace,<br>And gentlest beauty. Hence when lightening fires<br>The arch of heaven, and thunders rock the ground,<br>When furious whirlwinds rend the howling air,<br>And ocean, groaning from his lowest bed,<br>Heaves his tempestuous billows to the sky;<br>Amid the mighty uproar, while below<br>The nations tremble, Shakespeare looks abroad<br>From some high cliff, superior, and enjoys<br>The elemental war. But Waller longs,<br>All on the margin of some flowery stream<br>To spread his careless limbs amid the cool<br>Of plantane shades, and to the listening deer<br>The tale of slighted vows and love's disdain<br>Resound soft-warbling all the live-long day:<br>Consenting Zephyr sighs; the weeping rill<br>Joins in his plaint, melodious; mute the groves;<br>And hill and dale with all their echoes mourn.<br>Such and so various are the tastes of men.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh! blest of heaven, whom not the languid songs<br>Of luxury, the Siren! not the bribes<br>Of sordid wealth, nor all the gaudy spoils<br>Of pageant honour can seduce to leave<br>Those ever blooming sweets, which from the store<br>Of nature fair imagination culls<br>To charm the inliven'd soul! What though not all<br>Of mortal offspring can attain the heights<br>Of envied life; though only few possess<br>Patrician treasures or imperial state;<br>Yet nature's care, to all her children just,<br>With richer treasures and an ampler state,<br>Indows at large whatever happy man<br>Will deign to use them. His the city's pomp,<br>The rural honors his. Whate'er adorns<br>The princely dome, the column and the arch,<br>The breathing marbles and the sculptur'd gold,<br>Beyond the proud possessor's narrow claim,<br>His tuneful breast injoys. For him, the spring<br>Distills her dews, and from the silken gem<br>Its lucid leaves unfolds: for him, the hand<br>Of autumn tinges every fertile branch<br>With blooming gold and blushes like the morn.<br>Each passing hour sheds tribute from her wings;<br>And still new beauties meet his lonely walk,<br>And loves unfelt attract him. Not a breeze<br>Flies o'er the meadow, not a cloud imbibes<br>The setting sun's effulgence, not a strain<br>From all the tenants of the warbling shade<br>Ascends, but whence his bosom can partake<br>Fresh pleasure, unreprov'd. Nor thence partakes<br>Fresh pleasure only: for the attentive mind,<br>By this harmonious action on her powers<br>Becomes herself harmonious: wont so oft<br>In outward things to meditate the charm<br>Of sacred order, soon she seeks at home<br>To find a kindred order, to exert<br>Within herself this elegance of love,<br>This fair-inspir'd delight: her temper'd powers<br>Refine at length, and every passion wears<br>A chaster, milder, more attractive mien.<br>But if to ampler prospects, if to gaze<br>On nature's form, where, negligent of all<br>These lesser graces, she assumes the port<br>Of that eternal majesty that weigh'd<br>The world's foundations, if to these the mind<br>Exalts her daring eye; then mightier far<br>Will be the change, and nobler. Would the forms<br>Of servile custom cramp her generous powers?<br>Would sordid policies, the barbarous growth<br>Of ignorance and rapine, bow her down<br>To tame pursuits, to indolence and fear?<br>Lo! she appeals to nature, to the winds<br>And rowling waves, the sun's unwearied course,<br>The elements and seasons: all declare<br>For what the eternal maker has ordain'd<br>The powers of man: we feel within ourselves<br>His energy divine: he tells the heart,<br>He meant, he made us to behold and love<br>What he beholds and loves, the general orb<br>Of life and being; to be great like him,<br>Beneficent and active. Thus the men<br>Whom nature's works can charm, with God himself<br>Hold converse; grow familiar, day by day,<br>With his conceptions, act upon his plan;<br>And form to his, the relish of their souls.</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=454974" data-title="The Pleasures of Imagination: Book The Third de Mark Akenside" data-description="What wonder therefore, since the indearing ties Of passion link the universal kind Of man so close, what wonder if to search This common nature through the various change Of sex, and age, and fortune, and the frame Of each peculiar, draw the busy ..."></div> </div> </div>

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