The Poetical Works of Mark Akenside Part 12

O bloom of youth, O tender charms Well-buried in a dotard's arms!

O equal price of beauty sold!

7 Cease then to gaze with looks of love: Bid her adieu, the venal fair: Unworthy she your bliss to prove; Then wherefore should she prove your care?

No: lay your myrtle garland down; And let a while the willow's crown With luckier omens bind your hair.

8 O just escaped the faithless main, Though driven unwilling on the land; To guide your favour'd steps again, Behold your better Genius stand: Where Truth revolves her page divine, Where Virtue leads to Honour's shrine, Behold, he lifts his awful hand.

9 Fix but on these your ruling aim, And Time, the sire of manly care, Will fancy's dazzling colours tame; A soberer dress will beauty wear: Then shall esteem, by knowledge led, Enthrone within your heart and head Some happier love, some truer fair.

ODE IV.

AFFECTED INDIFFERENCE. TO THE SAME.

1 Yes: you contemn the perjured maid Who all your favourite hopes betray'd: Nor, though her heart should home return, Her tuneful tongue its falsehood mourn, Her winning eyes your faith implore, Would you her hand receive again, Or once dissemble your disdain, Or listen to the siren's theme, Or stoop to love: since now esteem And confidence, and friendship, is no more.

2 Yet tell me, Phaedria, tell me why, When, summoning your pride, you try To meet her looks with cool neglect, Or cross her walk with slight respect (For so is falsehood best repaid), Whence do your cheeks indignant glow?

Why is your struggling tongue so slow?

What means that darkness on your brow, As if with all her broken vow You meant the fair apostate to upbraid?

ODE V.

AGAINST SUSPICION.

1 Oh, fly! 'tis dire Suspicion's mien; And, meditating plagues unseen, The sorceress. .h.i.ther bends: Behold her touch in gall imbrued: Behold--her garment drops with blood Of lovers and of friends.

2 Fly far! Already in your eyes I see a pale suffusion rise; And soon through every vein, Soon will her secret venom spread, And all your heart and all your head Imbibe the potent stain.

3 Then many a demon will she raise To vex your sleep, to haunt your ways; While gleams of lost delight Raise the dark tempest of the brain, As lightning shines across the main Through whirlwinds and through night.

4 No more can faith or candour move; But each ingenuous deed of love, Which reason would applaud, Now, smiling o'er her dark distress, Fancy malignant strives to dress Like injury and fraud.

5 Farewell to virtue's peaceful times: Soon will you stoop to act the crimes Which thus you stoop to fear: Guilt follows guilt; and where the train Begins with wrongs of such attain, What horrors form the rear!

6 'Tis thus to work her baleful power, Suspicion waits the sullen hour Of fretfulness and strife, When care the infirmer bosom wrings, Or Eurus waves his murky wings To damp the seats of life.

7 But come, forsake the scene unbless'd, Which first beheld your faithful breast To groundless fears a prey: Come where, with my prevailing lyre, The skies, the streams, the groves conspire To charm your doubts away.

8 Throned in the sun's descending car, What power unseen diffuseth far This tenderness of mind?

What Genius smiles on yonder flood?

What G.o.d, in whispers from the wood, Bids every thought be kind?

9 O Thou, whate'er thy awful name, Whose wisdom our untoward frame With social love restrains; Thou, who by fair affection's ties Giv'st us to double all our joys, And half disarm our pains;

10 If far from Dyson and from me Suspicion took, by thy decree, Her everlasting flight; If firm on virtue's ample base Thy parent hand has deign'd to raise Our friendship's honour'd height;

11 Let universal candour still, Clear as yon heaven-reflecting rill, Preserve my open mind; Nor this nor that man's crooked ways One sordid doubt within me raise To injure human kind.

ODE VI.

HYMN TO CHEERFULNESS.

How thick the shades of evening close!

How pale the sky with weight of snows!

Haste, light the tapers, urge the fire, And bid the joyless day retire.-- Alas, in vain I try within To brighten the dejected scene, While, roused by grief, these fiery pains Tear the frail texture of my veins; While Winter's voice, that storms around, And yon deep death-bell's groaning sound 10 Renew my mind's oppressive gloom, Till starting Horror shakes the room.

Is there in nature no kind power To soothe affliction's lonely hour?

To blunt the edge of dire disease, And teach these wintry shades to please?

Come, Cheerfulness, triumphant fair, Shine through the hovering cloud of care: O sweet of language, mild of mien, O Virtue's friend and Pleasure's queen, 20 a.s.suage the flames that burn my breast, Compose my jarring thoughts to rest; And while thy gracious gifts I feel, My song shall all thy praise reveal.

As once ('twas in Astraea's reign) The vernal powers renew'd their train, It happen'd that immortal Love Was ranging through the spheres above, And downward hither cast his eye The year's returning pomp to spy. 30 He saw the radiant G.o.d of day Waft in his car the rosy May; The fragrant Airs and genial Hours Were shedding round him dews and flowers; Before his wheels Aurora pa.s.s'd, And Hesper's golden lamp was last.

But, fairest of the blooming throng, When Health majestic moved along, Delighted to survey below The joys which from her presence flow, 40 While earth enliven'd hears her voice, And swains, and flocks, and fields rejoice; Then mighty Love her charms confess'd, And soon his vows inclined her breast, And, known from that auspicious morn, The pleasing Cheerfulness was born.

Thou, Cheerfulness, by heaven design'd To sway the movements of the mind, Whatever fretful pa.s.sion springs, Whatever wayward fortune brings 50 To disarrange the power within, And strain the musical machine; Thou G.o.ddess, thy attempering hand Doth each discordant string command, Refines the soft, and swells the strong; And, joining Nature's general song, Through many a varying tone unfolds The harmony of human souls.

Fair guardian of domestic life, 59 Kind banisher of homebred strife, Nor sullen lip, nor taunting eye Deforms the scene where thou art by: No sickening husband d.a.m.ns the hour Which bound his joys to female power; No pining mother weeps the cares Which parents waste on thankless heirs: The officious daughters pleased attend; The brother adds the name of friend: By thee with flowers their board is crown'd, With songs from thee their walks resound; 70 And morn with welcome l.u.s.tre shines, And evening unperceived declines.

Is there a youth whose anxious heart Labours with love's unpitied smart?

Though now he stray by rills and bowers, And weeping waste the lonely hours, Or if the nymph her audience deign, Debase the story of his pain With slavish looks, discolour'd eyes, And accents faltering into sighs; 80 Yet thou, auspicious power, with ease Canst yield him happier arts to please, Inform his mien with manlier charms, Instruct his tongue with n.o.bler arms, With more commanding pa.s.sion move, And teach the dignity of love.

Friend to the Muse and all her train, For thee I court the Muse again: The Muse for thee may well exert Her pomp, her charms, her fondest art, 90 Who owes to thee that pleasing sway Which earth and peopled heaven obey.

Let Melancholy's plaintive tongue Repeat what later bards have sung; But thine was Homer's ancient might, And thine victorious Pindar's flight: Thy hand each Lesbian wreath attired: Thy lip Sicilian reeds inspired: Thy spirit lent the glad perfume Whence yet the flowers of Teos bloom; 100 Whence yet from Tibur's Sabine vale Delicious blows the enlivening gale, While Horace calls thy sportive choir, Heroes and nymphs, around his lyre.

But see, where yonder pensive sage (A prey perhaps to fortune's rage, Perhaps by tender griefs oppress'd, Or glooms congenial to his breast) Retires in desert scenes to dwell, And bids the joyless world farewell. 110

Alone he treads the autumnal shade, Alone beneath the mountain laid He sees the nightly damps ascend, And gathering storms aloft impend; He hears the neighbouring surges roll, And raging thunders shake the pole; Then, struck by every object round, And stunn'd by every horrid sound, He asks a clue for Nature's ways; But evil haunts him through the maze: 120 He sees ten thousand demons rise To wield the empire of the skies, And Chance and Fate a.s.sume the rod, And Malice blot the throne of G.o.d.-- O thou, whose pleasing power I sing, Thy lenient influence hither bring; Compose the storm, dispel the gloom, Till Nature wear her wonted bloom, Till fields and shades their sweets exhale, And music swell each opening gale: 130 Then o'er his breast thy softness pour, And let him learn the timely hour To trace the world's benignant laws, And judge of that presiding cause Who founds on discord beauty's reign, Converts to pleasure every pain, Subdues each hostile form to rest, And bids the universe be bless'd.

O thou, whose pleasing power I sing, If right I touch the votive string, 140 If equal praise I yield thy name, Still govern thou thy poet's flame; Still with the Muse my bosom share, And soothe to peace intruding care.

But most exert thy pleasing power On friendship's consecrated hour; And while my Sophron points the road To G.o.dlike wisdom's calm abode, Or warm in freedom's ancient cause Traceth the source of Albion's laws, 150 Add thou o'er all the generous toil The light of thy unclouded smile.

But if, by fortune's stubborn sway From him and friendship torn away, I court the Muse's healing spell For griefs that still with absence dwell, Do thou conduct my fancy's dreams To such indulgent placid themes, As just the struggling breast may cheer, And just suspend the starting tear, 160 Yet leave that sacred sense of woe Which none but friends and lovers know.

ODE VII.

ON THE USE OF POETRY.