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.

    72/144 (page 68)
    Between two parting cliffs his golden orb. And pour’d acrofs the fhadow of the hills. On rocks and floods, a yellow ftream of light That chear’d the folemn fcene. My lift’ning pow’rs Were aw’d, and every thought in filence hung, 30a And wond’ring expe&ation. Then the voice Of that coeleftial pow’r, the myftic fliow Declaring, thus my deep attention call’d. Inhabitant of earth, to whom is giv’n The gracious ways of providence to learn, 305 Receive Inhabitant of earth, &c. ] The account of the ceconomy of providence here introduced, as the moffc proper to calm and fa- tisfy the mind when under the compunction of private evils, feems to have come originally from the Pythagorean fchool : but of the ancient philofophers, Plato has molt largely infilled upon it, has dtablilhed it with all the ftrength of his capacious underllanding, and ennobled it with all the magnificence of his divine imagination. He has one pafiage fo full and clear on the head, that I am perfuaded the reader will be pleafed to fee it here, tho’ fomewhat long. Addrefiing himfelf to fuch as are not fatisfied concerning divine providence. The being <wh§ prejtdes