The pleasures of imagination. A poem / In three books.

  • Mark Akenside
Date:
1754
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The pleasures of imagination. A poem / In three books. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    43/144 (page 39)
    Attune the dreadful workings of his heart; 400 Yet be not ye difmay’d. A gentle ftar Your lovely fearch illumines. From the grove Where wifdom talk’d with her Athenian fons. Could my ambitious hand intwine a wreath -Of Plato’s olive with the Mantuan bay, 405 Then fhould my pow’rful voice at once difpell Thofe monkifb horrors : then in light divine Difclofe th’ Elyfian profpedt, where the fteps Of thofe whom nature charms, thro’ blooming walks* Thro’ fragrant mountains and poetic flreams, 410 Amid the train of fages, heroes, bards. Led by their winged Genius and the choir Of laurell’d fcience and harmonious art, Proceed exulting to th5 eternal fhrine, Where truth confpicuous with her filter-twins, 415 The undivided partners of her fway, With good and beauty reigns. O let not us. Lull’d by luxurious pleafure’s languid (train. Or crouching to the frowns of bigot-rage, Q let not us a moment paufe to join 420 That godlike band. And if the gracious pow’r Who firft awaken’d my untutor’d fong, C 4 » Will