Poetical Works of Akenside by Mark Akenside (suggested reading TXT) 📕

420
Report of good or evil, as the scene
Was drawn by Fancy, pleasing or deform'd;
Thus her report can never there be true
Where Fancy cheats the intellectual eye
With glaring colours and distorted lines.
Is there a man to whom the name of death
Brings terror's ghastly pageants conjured up
Before him, death-bed groans, and dismal vows,
And the frail soul plunged headlong from the brink
Of life and daylight down the gloomy air, 430
An unknown depth, to gulfs of torturing fire
Unvisited by mercy? Then what hand
Can snatch this dreamer from the fatal toils
Which Fancy and Opinion thus conspire
To twine around his heart? Or who shall hush
Their clamour, when they tell him that to die,
To risk those horrors, is a direr curse
Than basest life can bring? Though Love with prayers
Most tender, with affliction's sacred tears,
Beseech his aid; though Gratitude and Faith 440
Condemn each step which loiters; yet let none
Make answer for him that if any frown
Of Danger thwart his path, he will not stay
Content, and be a wretch to be secure.
Here Vice begins then: at the gate of life,
Ere the young multitude to diverse roads
Part, like fond pilgrims on a journey unknown,
Sits Fancy, deep enchantress; and to each
With kind maternal looks presents her bowl,
A potent beverage. Heedless they comply, 450
Till the whole soul from that mysterious draught
Is tinged, and every transient thought imbibes
Of gladness or disgust, desire or fear,
One homebred colour, which not all the lights
Of Science e'er shall change; not all the storms
Of adverse Fortune wash away, nor yet
The robe of purest Virtue quite conceal.
Thence on they pass, where, meeting frequent shapes
Of good and evil, cunning phantoms apt
To fire or freeze the breast, with them they join 460
In dangerous parley; listening oft, and oft
Gazing with reckless passion, while its garb
The spectre heightens, and its pompous tale
Repeats, with some new circumstance to suit
That early tincture of the hearer's soul.
And should the guardian, Reason, but for one
Short moment yield to this illusive scene
His ear and eye, the intoxicating charm
Involves him, till no longer he discerns,
Or only guides to err. Then revel forth 470
A furious band that spurn him from the throne,
And all is uproar. Hence Ambition climbs
With sliding feet and hands impure, to grasp
Those solemn toys which glitter in his view
On Fortune's rugged steep; hence pale Revenge
Unsheaths her murderous dagger; Rapine hence
And envious Lust, by venal fraud upborne,
Surmount the reverend barrier of the laws
Which kept them from their prey; hence all the crimes
That e'er defiled the earth, and all the plagues 480
That follow them for vengeance, in the guise
Of Honour, Safety, Pleasure, Ease, or Pomp,
Stole first into the fond believing mind.

Yet not by Fancy's witchcraft on the brain
Are always the tumultuous passions driven
To guilty deeds, nor Reason bound in chains
That Vice alone may lord it. Oft, adorn'd
With motley pageants, Folly mounts his throne,
And plays her idiot antics, like a queen.
A thousand garbs she wears: a thousand ways 490
She whirls her giddy empire. Lo, thus far
With bold adventure to the Mantuan lyre
I sing for contemplation link'd with love,
A pensive theme. Now haply should my song
Unbend that serious countenance, and learn
Thalia's tripping gait, her shrill-toned voice,
Her wiles familiar: whether scorn she darts
In wanton ambush from her lip or eye,
Or whether, with a sad disguise of care
O'ermantling her gay brow, she acts in sport 500
The deeds of Folly, and from all sides round
Calls forth impetuous Laughter's gay rebuke;
Her province. But through every comic scene
To lead my Muse with her light pencil arm'd;
Through every swift occasion which the hand
Of Laughter points at, when the mirthful sting
Distends her labouring sides and chokes her tongue,
Were endless as to sound each grating note
With which the rooks, and chattering daws, and grave
Unwieldy inmates of the village pond, 510
The changing seasons of the sky proclaim;
Sun, cloud, or shower. Suffice it to have said,
Where'er the power of Ridicule displays
Her quaint-eyed visage, some incongruous form,
Some stubborn dissonance of things combined,
Strikes on her quick perception: whether Pomp,
Or Praise, or Beauty be dragg'd in and shewn
Where sordid fashions, where ignoble deeds,
Where foul Deformity is wont to dwell;
Or whether these with shrewd and wayward spite 520
Invade resplendent Pomp's imperious mien,
The charms of Beauty, or the boast of Praise.
Ask we for what fair end the Almighty Sire
In mortal bosoms stirs this gay contempt,
These grateful pangs of laughter; from disgust
Educing pleasure? Wherefore, but to aid
The tardy steps of Reason, and at once
By this prompt impulse urge us to depress
Wild Folly's aims? For, though the sober light
Of Truth slow dawning on the watchful mind 530
At length unfolds, through many a subtle tie,
How these uncouth disorders end at last
In public evil; yet benignant Heaven,
Conscious how dim the dawn of Truth appears
To thousands, conscious what a scanty pause
From labour and from care the wider lot
Of humble life affords for studious thought
To scan the maze of Nature, therefore stamp'd
These glaring scenes with characters of scorn,
As broad, as obvious to the passing clown 540
As to the letter'd sage's curious eye.
But other evils o'er the steps of man
Through all his walks impend; against whose might
The slender darts of Laughter nought avail:
A trivial warfare. Some, like cruel guards,
On Nature's ever-moving throne attend;
With mischief arm'd for him whoe'er shall thwart
The path of her inexorable wheels,
While she pursues the work that must be done
Through ocean, earth, and air. Hence, frequent forms 550
Of woe; the merchant, with his wealthy bark,
Buried by dashing waves; the traveller,
Pierced by the pointed lightning in his haste;
And the poor husbandman, with folded arms,
Surveying his lost labours, and a heap
Of blasted chaff the product of the field
Whence he expected bread. But worse than these,
I deem far worse, that other race of ills
Which human kind rear up among themselves;
That horrid offspring which misgovern'd Will 560
Bears to fantastic Error; vices, crimes,
Furies that curse the earth, and make the blows,
The heaviest blows, of Nature's innocent hand
Seem sport: which are indeed but as the care
Of a wise parent, who solicits good
To all her house, though haply at the price
Of tears and froward wailing and reproach
From some unthinking child, whom not the less
Its mother destines to be happy still.

These sources then of pain, this double lot 570
Of evil in the inheritance of man,
Required for his protection no slight force,
No careless watch; and therefore was his breast
Fenced round with passions quick to be alarm'd,
Or stubborn to oppose; with Fear, more swift
Than beacons catching flame from hill to hill,
Where armies land: with Anger, uncontroll'd
As the young lion bounding on his prey;
With Sorrow, that locks up the struggling heart;
And Shame, that overcasts the drooping eye 580
As with a cloud of lightning. These the part
Perform of eager monitors, and goad
The soul more sharply than with points of steel,
Her enemies to shun or to resist.
And as those passions, that converse with good,
Are good themselves; as Hope and Love and Joy,
Among the fairest and the sweetest boons
Of life, we rightly count: so these, which guard
Against invading evil, still excite
Some pain, some tumult; these, within the mind 590
Too oft admitted or too long retain'd,
Shock their frail seat, and by their uncurb'd rage
To savages more fell than Libya breeds
Transform themselves, till human thought becomes
A gloomy ruin, haunt of shapes unbless'd,
Of