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

From Albion dost thou fly,
Of Albion's daughters once the favourite fame?
O beauty's only friend,
Who giv'st her pleasing reverence to inspire;
Who selfish, bold desire
Dost to esteem and dear affection turn;
Alas, of thee forlorn
What joy, what praise, what hope can life pretend?

2 Behold, our youths in vain
Concerning nuptial happiness inquire:
Our maids no more aspire
The arts of bashful Hymen to attain;
But with triumphant eyes
And cheeks impassive, as they move along,
Ask homage of the throng.
The lover swears that in a harlot's arms
Are found the self-same charms,
And worthless and deserted lives and dies.

3 Behold, unbless'd at home,
The father of the cheerless household mourns:
The night in vain returns,
For Love and glad Content at distance roam;
While she, in whom his mind
Seeks refuge from the day's dull task of cares,
To meet him she prepares,
Through noise and spleen and all the gamester's art,
A listless, harass'd heart,
Where not one tender thought can welcome find.

4 'Twas thus, along the shore
Of Thames, Britannia's guardian Genius heard,
From many a tongue preferr'd,
Of strife and grief the fond invective lore:
At which the queen divine
Indignant, with her adamantine spear
Like thunder sounding near,
Smote the red cross upon her silver shield,
And thus her wrath reveal'd;
(I watch'd her awful words, and made them mine.)

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NOTES.


BOOK FIRST.

ODE XVIII, STANZA II.--2.

Lycurgus the Lacedemonian lawgiver brought into Greece from Asia Minor the first complete copy of Homer's works. At Plataea was fought the decisive battle between the Persian army and the united militia of Greece under Pausanias and Aristides. Cimon the Athenian erected a trophy in Cyprus for two great victories gained on the same day over the Persians by sea and land. Diodorus Siculus has preserved the inscription which the Athenians affixed to the consecrated spoils, after this great success; in which it is very remarkable that the greatness of the occasion has raised the manner of expression above the usual simplicity and modesty of all other ancient inscriptions. It is this:--

[Greek:
EX. OU. G. EUROPAeN. ASIAS. DIChA. PONTOS. ENEIME.
KAI. POLEAS. ONAeTON. ThOUROS. ARAeS. EPEChEI.
OUDEN. PO. TOIOUTON. EPIChThONION. GENET. ANDRON.
ERGON. EN. AePEIROI. KAI. KATA. PONOTON. AMA.
OIAE. GAR. EN. KUPROI. MAeDOUS. POLLOUS. OLESANTES.
PhOINIKON. EKATON. NAUS. ELON. EN. PELAGEI.
ANDRON. PLAeThOUSAS. META. D. ESENEN. ASIS. UP. AUTON.
PLAeGEIS. AMPhOTERAIS. ChERSI. KRATEI. POLEMOU.]

The following translation is almost literal:--

Since first the sea from Asia's hostile coast
Divided Europe, and the god of war
Assail'd imperious cities; never yet,
At once among the waves and on the shore,
Hath such a labour been achieved by men
Who earth inhabit. They, whose arms the Medes
In Cyprus felt pernicious, they, the same,
Have won from skilful Tyre an hundred ships
Crowded with warriors. Asia groans, in both
Her hands sore smitten, by the might of war.


STANZA II.--3.

Pindar was contemporary with Aristides and Cimon, in whom the glory of ancient Greece was at its height. When Xerxes invaded Greece, Pindar was true to the common interest of his country; though his fellow-citizens, the Thebans, had sold themselves to the Persian king. In one of his odes he expresses the great distress and anxiety of his mind, occasioned by the vast preparations of Xerxes against Greece ( Isthm . 8). In another he celebrates the victories of Salamis, Plataea, and Himera ( Pyth . 1). It will be necessary to add two or three other particulars of his life, real or fabulous, in order to explain what follows in the text concerning him. First, then, he was thought to be so great a favourite of Apollo, that the priests of that deity allotted him a constant share of their offerings. It was said of him, as of some other illustrious men, that at his birth a swarm of bees lighted on his lips, and fed him with their honey. It was also a tradition concerning him, that Pan was heard to recite his poetry, and seen dancing to one of his hymns on the mountains near Thebes. But a real historical fact in his life is, that the Thebans imposed a large fine upon him on account of the veneration which he expressed in his poems for that heroic spirit shown by the people of Athens in defence of the common liberty, which his own fellow-citizens had shamefully betrayed. And as the argument of this ode implies, that great poetical talents and high sentiments of liberty do reciprocally produce and assist each other, so Pindar is perhaps the most exemplary proof of this connexion which occurs in history. The Thebans were remarkable, in general, for a slavish disposition through all the fortunes of their commonwealth; at the time of its ruin by Philip; and even in its best state, under the administration of Pelopidas and Epaminondas: and every one knows they were no less remarkable for great dulness and want of all genius. That Pindar should have equally distinguished himself from the rest of his fellow-citizens in both these respects seems somewhat extraordinary, and is scarce to be accounted for but by the preceding observation.


STANZA III.--3.

Alluding to his defence of the people of England against Salmasins. See particularly the manner in which he himself speaks of that undertaking, in the introduction to his reply to Morus.


STANZA IV.--3.

Edward the Third; from whom descended Henry Hastings, third Earl of Huntingdon, by the daughter of the Duke of Clarence, brother to Edward the Fourth.


STANZA V.--3.

At Whittington, a village on the edge of Scarsdale in Derbyshire, the Earls of Devonshire and Danby, with the Lord Delamere, privately concerted the plan of the Revolution. The house in which they met is at present a farmhouse, and the country people distinguish the room where they sat by the name of the plotting parlour .

* * * * *


BOOK SECOND.

ODE VII. STANZA II.--1.

Mr. Locke died in 1704, when Mr. Hoadly was beginning to distinguish himself in the cause of civil and religious liberty: Lord Godolphin in 1712, when the doctrines of the Jacobite faction were chiefly favoured by those in power: Lord Somers in 1716, amid the practices of the nonjoining clergy against the Protestant establishment; and Lord Stanhope in 1721, during the controversy with the lower house of convocation.


ODE X. STANZA V.

During Mr. Pope's war with Theobald, Concanen, and the rest of their tribe, Mr. Warburton, the present Lord Bishop of Gloucester, did with great zeal cultivate their friendship, having been introduced, forsooth, at the meetings of that respectable confederacy--a favour which he afterwards spoke of in very high terms of complacency and thankfulness. At the same time, in his intercourse with them, he treated Mr. Pope in a most contemptuous manner, and as a writer without genius. Of the truth of these assertions his lordship can have no doubt, if he recollects his own correspondence with Concanen, a part of which is still in being, and will probably be remembered as long as any of this prelate's writings.


ODE XIII.

In the year 1751 appeared a very splendid edition, in quarto, of 'Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire de la Maison de Brandebourg, a Berlin et a la Haye,' with a privilege, signed Frederic, the same being engraved in imitation of handwriting. In this edition, among other extraordinary passages, are the two following, to which the third stanza of this ode more particularly refers:--

'Il se fit une migration' (the author is speaking of what happened at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes), 'dont on n'avoit guere vu d'exemples dans l'histoire: un peuple entier sortit du royaume par l'esprit de parti en haine du pape, et pour recevoir sous un autre ciel la communion sous les deux especes: quatre cens mille ames s'expatrierent ainsi et abandonnerent tous leur biens pour detonner dans d'autres temples les vieux pseaumes de Clement Marot.'--Page 163.

'La crainte donna le jour a la credulite, et l'amour propre interessa bientot le ciel au destin des hommes.'--Page 242.


HYMN TO THE NAIADS. 1746.


ARGUMENT.

The Nymphs, who preside over springs and rivulets, are addressed at daybreak, in honour of their several functions, and of the relations which they bear to the natural and to the moral world. Their origin is deduced from the first allegorical deities, or powers of nature, according to the doctrine of the old mythological poets, concerning the generation of the gods and the rise of things. They are then successively considered, as giving motion to the air and exciting summer breezes; as nourishing and beautifying the vegetable creation; as contributing to the fulness of navigable rivers, and consequently to the maintenance of commerce; and by that means to the maritime part of military power. Next is represented their favourable influence upon health when assisted by rural exercise, which introduces their connexion with the art of physic, and the happy effects of mineral medicinal springs. Lastly, they are celebrated for the friendship which the Muses bear them, and for the true inspiration which temperance only can receive, in opposition to the enthusiasm of the more licentious poets.


O'er yonder eastern bill the twilight pale
Walks forth from darkness; and the God of day,
With bright Astraea seated by his side,
Waits yet to leave the ocean. Tarry, Nymphs,
Ye Nymphs, ye blue-eyed progeny of Thames,
Who now the mazes of this rugged heath
Trace with your fleeting steps; who all night long
Repeat, amid the cool and tranquil air,
Your lonely murmurs, tarry, and receive
My offer'd lay. To pay you homage due, 10
I leave the gates of sleep; nor shall my lyre
Too far into