Poetical Works of Akenside by Mark Akenside (classic books to read .TXT) 📖

70
In the same order have approach'd his mind,
He deigns no more their steps with curious heed
To trace; no more their features or their garb
He now examines; but of them and their
Condition, as with some diviner's tongue,
Affirms what Heaven in every distant place,
Through every future season, will decree.
This too is Truth; where'er his prudent lips
Wait till experience diligent and slow
Has authorised their sentence, this is Truth; 80
A second, higher kind: the parent this
Of Science; or the lofty power herself,
Science herself, on whom the wants and cares
Of social life depend; the substitute
Of God's own wisdom in this toilsome world;
The providence of man. Yet oft in vain,
To earn her aid, with fix'd and anxious eye
He looks on Nature's and on Fortune's course:
Too much in vain. His duller visual ray
The stillness and the persevering acts 90
Of Nature oft elude; and Fortune oft
With step fantastic from her wonted walk
Turns into mazes dim; his sight is foil'd;
And the crude sentence of his faltering tongue
Is but opinion's verdict, half believed,
And prone to change. Here thou, who feel'st thine ear
Congenial to my lyre's profounder tone,
Pause, and be watchful. Hitherto the stores,
Which feed thy mind and exercise her powers,
Partake the relish of their native soil, 100
Their parent earth. But know, a nobler dower
Her Sire at birth decreed her; purer gifts
From his own treasure; forms which never deign'd
In eyes or ears to dwell, within the sense
Of earthly organs; but sublime were placed
In his essential reason, leading there
That vast ideal host which all his works
Through endless ages never will reveal.
Thus then endow'd, the feeble creature man,
The slave of hunger and the prey of death, 110
Even now, even here, in earth's dim prison bound,
The language of intelligence divine
Attains; repeating oft concerning one
And many, past and present, parts and whole,
Those sovereign dictates which in furthest heaven,
Where no orb rolls, Eternity's fix'd ear
Hears from coeval Truth, when Chance nor Change,
Nature's loud progeny, nor Nature's self
Dares intermeddle or approach her throne.
Ere long, o'er this corporeal world he learns 120
To extend her sway; while calling from the deep,
From earth and air, their multitudes untold
Of figures and of motions round his walk,
For each wide family some single birth
He sets in view, the impartial type of all
Its brethren; suffering it to claim, beyond
Their common heritage, no private gift,
No proper fortune. Then whate'er his eye
In this discerns, his bold unerring tongue
Pronounceth of the kindred, without bound, 130
Without condition. Such the rise of forms
Sequester'd far from sense and every spot
Peculiar in the realms of space or time;
Such is the throne which man for Truth amid
The paths of mutability hath built
Secure, unshaken, still; and whence he views,
In matter's mouldering structures, the pure forms
Of triangle or circle, cube or cone,
Impassive all; whose attributes nor force
Nor fate can alter. There he first conceives 140
True being, and an intellectual world
The same this hour and ever. Thence he deems
Of his own lot; above the painted shapes
That fleeting move o'er this terrestrial scene
Looks up; beyond the adamantine gates
Of death expatiates; as his birthright claims
Inheritance in all the works of God;
Prepares for endless time his plan of life,
And counts the universe itself his home.

Whence also but from Truth, the light of minds, 150
Is human fortune gladden'd with the rays
Of Virtue? with the moral colours thrown
On every walk of this our social scene,
Adorning for the eye of gods and men
The passions, actions, habitudes of life,
And rendering earth like heaven, a sacred place
Where Love and Praise may take delight to dwell?
Let none with heedless tongue from Truth disjoin
The reign of Virtue. Ere the dayspring flow'd,
Like sisters link'd in Concord's golden chain, 160
They stood before the great Eternal Mind,
Their common parent, and by him were both
Sent forth among his creatures, hand in hand,
Inseparably join'd; nor e'er did Truth
Find an apt ear to listen to her lore,
Which knew not Virtue's voice; nor, save where Truth's
Majestic words are heard and understood,
Doth Virtue deign to inhabit. Go, inquire
Of Nature; not among Tartarian rocks,
Whither the hungry vulture with its prey 170
Returns; not where the lion's sullen roar
At noon resounds along the lonely banks
Of ancient Tigris; but her gentler scenes,
The dovecote and the shepherd's fold at morn,
Consult; or by the meadow's fragrant hedge,
In spring-time when the woodlands first are green,
Attend the linnet singing to his mate
Couch'd o'er their tender young. To this fond care
Thou dost not Virtue's honourable name
Attribute; wherefore, save that not one gleam 180
Of Truth did e'er discover to themselves
Their little hearts, or teach them, by the effects
Of that parental love, the love itself
To judge, and measure its officious deeds?
But man, whose eyelids Truth has fill'd with day,
Discerns how skilfully to bounteous ends
His wise affections move; with free accord
Adopts their guidance; yields himself secure
To Nature's prudent impulse; and converts
Instinct to duty and to sacred law. 190
Hence Right and Fit on earth; while thus to man
The Almighty Legislator hath explain'd
The springs of action fix'd within his breast;
Hath given him power to slacken or restrain
Their effort; and hath shewn him how they join
Their partial movements with the master-wheel
Of the great world, and serve that sacred end
Which he, the unerring reason, keeps in view.

For (if a mortal tongue may speak of him
And his dread ways) even as his boundless eye, 200
Connecting every form and every change,
Beholds the perfect Beauty; so his will,
Through every hour producing good to all
The family of creatures, is itself
The perfect Virtue. Let the grateful swain
Remember this, as oft with joy and praise
He looks upon the falling dews which clothe
His lawns with verdure, and the tender seed
Nourish within his furrows; when between
Dead seas and burning skies, where long unmoved 210
The bark had languish'd, now a rustling gale
Lifts o'er the fickle waves her dancing prow,
Let the glad pilot, bursting out in thanks,
Remember this; lest blind o'erweening pride
Pollute their offerings; lest their selfish heart
Say to the heavenly ruler, 'At our call
Relents thy power; by us thy arm is moved.'
Fools! who of God as of each other deem;
Who his invariable acts deduce
From sudden counsels transient as their own; 220
Nor further of his bounty, than the event
Which haply meets their loud and eager prayer,
Acknowledge; nor, beyond the drop minute
Which haply they have tasted, heed the source
That flows for all; the fountain of his love
Which, from the summit where he sits enthroned,
Pours health and joy, unfailing streams, throughout
The spacious region flourishing in view,
The goodly work of his eternal day,
His own fair universe; on which alone 230
His counsels fix, and whence alone his will
Assumes her strong direction. Such is now
His sovereign purpose; such it was before
All multitude of years. For his right arm
Was never idle; his bestowing love
Knew no beginning; was not as a change
Of mood that woke at last and started up
After a deep and solitary sloth
Of boundless ages. No; he now is good,
He ever was. The feet of hoary Time 240
Through their eternal course have travell'd o'er
No speechless, lifeless desert; but through scenes
Cheerful with bounty still; among a pomp
Of worlds, for gladness round the Maker's throne
Loud-shouting, or, in many dialects
Of hope and filial trust, imploring thence
The fortunes of their