Poetical Works of Akenside by Mark Akenside

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II.--2.

Now oft, where happy spirits dwell,
Where yet he tunes his charming shell,
Oft near him, with applauding hands,
The Genius of his country stands.
To listening gods he makes him known,
That man divine, by whom were sown
The seeds of Grecian fame:
Who first the race with freedom fired;
From whom Lycurgus Sparta's sons inspired;
From whom Plataean palms and Cyprian trophies came.

II.--3.

O noblest, happiest age!
When Aristides ruled, and Cimon fought;
When all the generous fruits of Homer's page
Exulting Pindar saw to full perfection brought.
O Pindar, oft shalt thou be hail'd of me:
Not that Apollo fed thee from his shrine;
Not that thy lips drank sweetness from the bee;
Nor yet that, studious of thy notes divine,
Pan danced their measure with the sylvan throng:
But that thy song
Was proud to unfold
What thy base rulers trembled to behold;
Amid corrupted Thebes was proud to tell
The deeds of Athens and the Persian shame:
Hence on thy head their impious vengeance fell.
But thou, O faithful to thy fame,
The Muse's law didst rightly know;
That who would animate his lays,
And other minds to virtue raise,
Must feel his own with all her spirit glow.

III.--1.

Are there, approved of later times,
Whose verse adorn'd a tyrant's [1] crimes?
Who saw majestic Rome betray'd,
And lent the imperial ruffian aid?
Alas! not one polluted bard,
No, not the strains that Mincius heard,
Or Tibur's hills replied,
Dare to the Muse's ear aspire;
Save that, instructed by the Grecian lyre,
With Freedom's ancient notes their shameful task they hide.

III.--2.

Mark, how the dread Pantheon stands,
Amid the domes of modern hands:
Amid the toys of idle state,
How simply, how severely great!
Then turn, and, while each western clime
Presents her tuneful sons to Time,
So mark thou Milton's name;
And add, 'Thus differs from the throng
The spirit which inform'd thy awful song,
Which bade thy potent voice protect thy country's fame.'

III.--3.

Yet hence barbaric zeal
His memory with unholy rage pursues;
While from these arduous cares of public weal
She bids each bard begone, and rest him with his Muse.
O fool! to think the man, whose ample mind
Must grasp at all that yonder stars survey;
Must join the noblest forms of every kind,
The world's most perfect image to display,
Can e'er his country's majesty behold,
Unmoved or cold!
O fool! to deem
That he, whose thought must visit every theme,
Whose heart must every strong emotion know
Inspired by Nature, or by Fortune taught;
That he, if haply some presumptuous foe,
With false ignoble science fraught,
Shall spurn at Freedom's faithful band:
That he their dear defence will shun,
Or hide their glories from the sun,
Or deal their vengeance with a woman's hand!

IV.--1.

I care not that in Arno's plain,
Or on the sportive banks of Seine,
From public themes the Muse's choir
Content with polish'd ease retire.
Where priests the studious head command,
Where tyrants bow the warlike hand
To vile ambition's aim,
Say, what can public themes afford,
Save venal honours to a hateful lord,
Reserved for angry heaven and scorn'd of honest fame?

IV.--2.

But here, where Freedom's equal throne
To all her valiant sons is known;
Where all are conscious of her cares,
And each the power, that rules him, shares;
Here let the bard, whose dastard tongue
Leaves public arguments unsung,
Bid public praise farewell:
Let him to fitter climes remove,
Far from the hero's and the patriot's love,
And lull mysterious monks to slumber in their cell.

IV.--3.

O Hastings, not to all
Can ruling Heaven the same endowments lend:
Yet still doth Nature to her offspring call,
That to one general weal their different powers they bend,
Unenvious. Thus alone, though strains divine
Inform the bosom of the Muse's son;
Though with new honours the patrician's line
Advance from age to age; yet thus alone
They win the suffrage of impartial fame.

The poet's name
He best shall prove,
Whose lays the soul with noblest passions move.
But thee, O progeny of heroes old,
Thee to severer toils thy fate requires:
The fate which form'd thee in a chosen mould,
The grateful country of thy sires,
Thee to sublimer paths demand;
Sublimer than thy sires could trace,
Or thy own Edward teach his race,
Though Gaul's proud genius sank beneath his hand.

V.--1.

From rich domains, and subject farms,
They led the rustic youth to arms;
And kings their stern achievements fear'd,
While private strife their banners rear'd.
But loftier scenes to thee are shown,
Where empire's wide establish'd throne
No private master fills:
Where, long foretold, the People reigns;
Where each a vassal's humble heart disdains;
And judgeth what he sees; and, as he judgeth, wills.

V.--2.

Here be it thine to calm and guide
The swelling democratic tide;
To watch the state's uncertain frame,
And baffle Faction's partial aim:
But chiefly, with determined zeal,
To quell that servile band, who kneel
To Freedom's banish'd foes;
That monster, which is daily found
Expert and bold thy country's peace to wound;
Yet dreads to handle arms, nor manly counsel knows.

V.--3.

'Tis highest Heaven's command,
That guilty aims should sordid paths pursue;
That what ensnares the heart should maim the hand,
And Virtue's worthless foes be false to glory too.
But look on Freedom;--see, through every age,
What labours, perils, griefs, hath she disdain'd!
What arms, what regal pride, what priestly rage,
Have her dread offspring conquer'd or sustain'd!
For Albion well have conquer'd. Let the strains
Of happy swains,
Which now resound
Where Scarsdale's cliffs the swelling pastures bound,
Bear witness;--there, oft let the farmer hail
The sacred orchard which embowers his gate,
And show to strangers passing down the vale,
Where Candish, Booth, and Osborne sate;
When, bursting from their country's chain,
Even in the midst of deadly harms,
Of papal snares and lawless arms,
They plann'd for Freedom this her noblest reign.

VI.--1.

This reign, these laws, this public care,
Which Nassau gave us all to share,
Had ne'er adorn'd the English name,
Could Fear have silenced Freedom's claim.
But Fear in vain attempts to bind
Those lofty efforts of the mind
Which social good inspires;
Where men, for this, assault a throne,
Each adds the common welfare to his own;
And each unconquer'd heart the strength of all acquires.

VI.--2.

Say, was it thus, when late we view'd
Our fields in civil blood imbrued?
When fortune crown'd the barbarous host,
And half the astonish'd isle was lost?
Did one of all that vaunting train,
Who dare affront a peaceful reign,
Durst one in arms appear?
Durst one in counsels pledge his life?
Stake his luxurious fortunes in the strife?
Or lend his boasted name his vagrant friends to cheer?

VI.--3.

Yet, Hastings, these are they
Who challenge to themselves thy country's love;
The true; the constant: who alone can weigh,
What glory should demand, or liberty approve!
But let their works declare them. Thy free powers,
The generous powers of thy prevailing mind,
Not for the tasks of their confederate hours,
Lewd brawls and lurking slander, were design'd.
Be thou thy own approver. Honest praise
Oft nobly sways
Ingenuous youth;
But, sought from cowards and the lying mouth,
Praise is reproach. Eternal God alone
For mortals fixeth that sublime award.
He, from the faithful records of his throne,
Bids the historian and the bard
Dispose of honour and of scorn;
Discern the patriot from the slave;
And write the good, the wise, the brave,
For lessons to the multitude unborn.

[Footnote 1: 'A tyrant:' Octavianus Cæsar.]

BOOK II.

ODE I.

THE REMONSTRANCE OF SHAKSPEARE:

SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN SPOKEN AT THE THEATRE-ROYAL, WHILE THE
FRENCH COMEDIANS WERE ACTING BY SUBSCRIPTION. 1749.

If, yet regardful of your native land,
Old Shakspeare's tongue you deign to understand,
Lo, from the blissful bowers where heaven rewards
Instructive sages and unblemish'd bards,
I come, the ancient founder of the stage,
Intent to learn, in this discerning age,
What form of wit your fancies have embraced,
And whither tends your elegance of taste,
That thus at length our homely toils you spurn,
That thus to foreign scenes you proudly turn, 10
That from my brow the laurel wreath you claim
To crown the rivals of your country's fame.

What though the footsteps of my devious Muse
The measured walks of Grecian art refuse?
Or though the frankness of my hardy style
Mock the nice touches of the critic's file?
Yet, what my age and climate held to view,
Impartial I survey'd and fearless drew.
And say, ye skilful in the human heart,
Who know to prize a poet's noblest part, 20
What age, what clime, could e'er an ampler field
For lofty thought, for daring fancy, yield?
I saw this England break the shameful bands
Forged for the souls of men by sacred hands:
I saw each groaning realm her aid implore;
Her sons the heroes of each warlike shore:
Her naval standard (the dire Spaniard's bane)
Obey'd through all the circuit of the main.
Then, too, great Commerce, for a late found world,
Around your coast her eager sails unfurl'd! 30
New hopes, new passions, thence the bosom fired;
New plans, new arts, the genius thence inspired;
Thence every scene, which private fortune knows,
In stronger life, with bolder spirit, rose.

Disgraced I this full prospect which I drew,
My colours languid, or my strokes untrue?
Have not your sages, warriors, swains, and kings,
Confess'd the living draught of men and things?
What other bard in any clime appears
Alike the master of your smiles and tears? 40
Yet have I deign'd your audience to entice
With wretched bribes to luxury and vice?
Or have my various scenes a purpose known
Which freedom, virtue, glory, might not own?

Such from the first was my dramatic plan;
It should be yours to crown what I began:
And now that England spurns her Gothic chain,
And equal laws and social science reign,
I thought, Now surely shall my zealous eyes
View nobler bards and juster critics rise, 50
Intent with learned labour to refine
The copious ore of Albion's native mine,
Our stately Muse more graceful airs to teach,
And form her tongue to more attractive speech,
Till rival nations listen at her feet,
And own her polish'd as they own her great.

But do you thus my favourite hopes fulfil?
Is France at last the standard of your skill?
Alas for you! that so betray a mind
Of art unconscious and to beauty blind. 60
Say, does her language your ambition raise,
Her barren, trivial, unharmonious phrase,
Which fetters eloquence to scantiest bounds,
And maims the cadence of poetic sounds?
Say, does your humble admiration choose
The gentle prattle of her Comic Muse,
While wits, plain-dealers, fops, and fools appear,
Charged to say nought but what the king may hear?
Or rather melt your sympathising hearts
Won by her tragic scene's romantic arts, 70
Where old and young declaim on soft desire,
And heroes never, but for love, expire?

No. Though the charms of novelty, a while,
Perhaps too fondly win your thoughtless smile,
Yet not for you design'd indulgent fate
The modes or manners of the Bourbon state.
And ill your minds my partial judgment reads,
And many an augury my hope misleads,
If the fair maids of yonder blooming train
To their light courtship would an audience deign, 80
Or those chaste matrons a Parisian wife
Choose for the model of domestic life;
Or if one youth of all that generous band,
The strength and splendour of their native land,
Would yield his portion of his country's fame,
And quit old freedom's patrimonial claim,
With lying smiles oppression's pomp to see,
And judge of glory by a king's decree.

O bless'd at home with justly-envied laws,
O long the chiefs of Europe's general cause, 90
Whom heaven hath chosen at each dangerous hour
To check the inroads of barbaric power,
The rights of trampled nations to reclaim,
And guard the social world from bonds and shame;
Oh! let not luxury's fantastic charms
Thus give the lie to your heroic arms:
Nor for the ornaments of life embrace
Dishonest lessons from that vaunting race,
Whom fate's dread laws (for, in eternal fate
Despotic rule was heir to freedom's hate), 100
Whom in each warlike, each commercial part,
In civil council, and in pleasing art,
The judge of earth predestined for your foes,
And made it fame and virtue to oppose.

ODE II.

TO SLEEP.

1 Thou silent power, whose welcome sway
Charms every anxious thought away;
In whose divine oblivion drown'd,
Sore pain and weary toil grow mild,
Love is with kinder looks beguiled,
And grief forgets her fondly cherish'd wound;
Oh, whither hast thou flown, indulgent god?
God of kind shadows and of healing dews,
Whom dost thou touch with thy Lethæan rod?
Around whose temples now thy opiate airs diffuse?

2 Lo, Midnight from her starry reign
Looks awful down on earth and main.
The tuneful birds lie hush'd in sleep,
With all that crop the verdant food,
With all that skim the crystal flood,
Or haunt the caverns of the rocky steep.
No rushing winds disturb the tufted bowers;
No wakeful sound the moonlight valley knows,
Save where the brook its liquid murmur pours,
And lulls the waving scene to more profound repose.

3 Oh, let not me alone complain,
Alone invoke thy power in vain!
Descend, propitious, on my eyes;
Not from the couch that bears a crown,
Not from the courtly statesman's down,
Nor where the miser and his treasure lies:
Bring not the shapes that break the murderer's rest,
Nor those the hireling soldier loves to see,
Nor those which haunt the bigot's gloomy breast:
Far be their guilty nights, and far their dreams from me!

4 Nor yet those awful forms present,
For chiefs and heroes only meant:
The figured brass, the choral song,
The rescued people's glad applause,
The listening senate, and the laws
Fix'd by the counsels of Timoleon's [1] tongue,
Are scenes too grand for fortune's private ways;
And though they shine in youth's ingenuous view,
The sober gainful arts of modern days
To such romantic thoughts have bid a long adieu.

5 I ask not, god of dreams, thy care
To banish Love's presentments fair:
Nor rosy cheek nor radiant eye
Can arm him with such strong command
That the young sorcerer's fatal hand
Should round my soul his pleasing fetters tie.
Nor yet the courtier's hope, the giving smile
(A lighter phantom, and a baser chain)
Did e'er in slumber my proud lyre beguile
To lend the pomp of thrones her ill-according strain.

6 But, Morpheus, on thy balmy wing
Such honourable visions bring,
As soothed great Milton's injured age,
When in prophetic dreams he saw
The race unborn with pious awe
Imbibe each virtue from his heavenly page:
Or such as Mead's benignant fancy knows
When health's deep treasures, by his art explored,
Have saved the infant from an orphan's woes,
Or to the trembling sire his age's hope restored.

[Footnote: 1: After Timoleon had delivered Syracuse from the tyranny
of Dionysius, the people on every important deliberation sent for him
into the public assembly, asked his advice, and voted according to it.
--_Plutarch_.]

ODE III.

TO THE CUCKOO.

1 O rustic herald of the spring,
At length in yonder woody vale
Fast by the brook I hear thee sing;
And, studious of thy homely tale,
Amid the vespers of the grove,
Amid the chanting choir of love,
Thy sage responses hail.

2 The time has been when I have frown'd
To hear thy voice the woods invade;
And while thy solemn accent drown'd
Some sweeter poet of the shade,
Thus, thought I, thus the sons of care
Some constant youth or generous fair
With dull advice upbraid.

3 I said, 'While Philomela's song
Proclaims the passion of the grove,
It ill beseems a cuckoo's tongue
Her charming language to reprove'--
Alas, how much a lover's ear
Hates all the sober truth to hear,
The sober truth of love!

4 When hearts are in each other bless'd,
When nought but lofty faith can rule
The nymph's and swain's consenting breast,
How cuckoo-like in Cupid's school,
With store of grave prudential saws
On fortune's power and custom's laws,
Appears each friendly fool!

5 Yet think betimes, ye gentle train
Whom love, and hope, and fancy sway,
Who every harsher care disdain,
Who by the morning judge the day,
Think that, in April's fairest hours,
To warbling shades and painted flowers
The cuckoo joins his lay.

ODE IV.

TO THE HONOURABLE CHARLES TOWNSHEND;
IN THE COUNTRY. 1750.

I.--1.

How oft shall I survey
This humble roof, the lawn, the greenwood shade,
The vale with sheaves o'erspread,
The glassy brook, the flocks which round thee stray?
When will thy cheerful mind
Of these have utter'd all her dear esteem?
Or, tell me, dost thou deem
No more to join in glory's toilsome race,
But here content embrace
That happy leisure which thou hadst resign'd?

I.--2.

Alas, ye happy hours,
When books and youthful sport the soul could share,
Ere one ambitious care
Of civil life had awed her simpler powers;
Oft as your winged, train
Revisit here my friend in white array,
Oh, fail not to display
Each fairer scene where I perchance had part,
That so his generous heart
The abode of even friendship may remain.

I.--3.

For not imprudent of my loss to come,
I saw from Contemplation's quiet cell
His feet ascending to another home,
Where public praise and envied greatness dwell.
But shall we therefore, O my lyre,
Reprove ambition's best desire,--
Extinguish glory's flame?
Far other was the task enjoin'd
When to my hand thy strings were first assign'd:
Far other faith belongs to friendship's honour'd name.

II.--1.

Thee, Townshend, not the arms
Of slumbering Ease, nor Pleasure's rosy chain,
Were destined to detain;
No, nor bright Science, nor the Muse's charms.
For them high heaven prepares
Their proper votaries, an humbler band:
And ne'er would Spenser's hand
Have deign'd to strike the warbling Tuscan shell,
Nor Harrington to tell
What habit an immortal city wears;

II.--2.

Had this been born to shield
The cause which Cromwell's impious hand betray'd,
Or that, like Vere, display'd
His redcross banner o'er the Belgian field;
Yet where the will divine
Hath shut those loftiest paths, it next remains,
With reason clad in strains
Of harmony, selected minds to inspire,
And virtue's living fire
To feed and eternise in hearts like thine.

II.--3.

For never shall the herd, whom envy sways,
So quell my purpose or my tongue control,
That I should fear illustrious worth to praise,
Because its master's friendship moved my soul.
Yet, if this undissembling strain
Should now perhaps thine ear detain
With any pleasing sound,
Remember thou that righteous Fame
From hoary age a strict account will claim
Of each auspicious palm with which thy youth was crown'd.

III.--1.

Nor obvious is the way
Where heaven expects thee nor the traveller leads;
Through flowers or fragrant meads,
Or groves that hark to Philomela's lay.
The impartial laws of fate
To nobler virtues wed severer cares.
Is there a man who shares
The summit next where heavenly natures dwell?
Ask him (for he can tell)
What storms beat round that rough laborious height.

III.--2.

Ye heroes, who of old
Did generous England Freedom's throne ordain;
From Alfred's parent reign
To Nassau, great deliverer, wise and bold;
I know your perils hard,
Your wounds, your painful marches, wintry seas,
The night estranged from ease,
The day by cowardice and falsehood vex'd,
The head with doubt perplex'd,
The indignant heart disdaining the reward,

III.--3.

Which envy hardly grants. But, O renown,
O praise from judging heaven and virtuous men,
If thus they purchased thy divinest crown,
Say, who shall hesitate, or who complain?
And now they sit on thrones above:
And when among the gods they move
Before the Sovereign Mind,
'Lo, these,' he saith, 'lo, these are they
Who to the laws of mine eternal sway
From violence and fear asserted human kind.'

IV.--1.

Thus honour'd while the train
Of legislators in his presence dwell;
If I may aught foretell,
The statesman shall the second palm obtain.
For dreadful deeds of arms
Let vulgar bards, with undiscerning praise,
More glittering trophies raise:
But wisest Heaven what deeds may chiefly move
To favour and to love?
What, save wide blessings, or averted harms?

IV.--2.

Nor to the embattled field
Shall these achievements of the peaceful gown,
The green immortal crown
Of valour, or the songs of conquest, yield.
Not Fairfax wildly bold,
While bare of crest he hew'd his fatal way
Through Naseby's firm array,
To heavier dangers did his breast oppose
Than Pym's free virtue chose,
When the proud force of Strafford he controll'd.

IV.--3.

But what is man at enmity with truth?
What were the fruits of Wentworth's copious mind,
When (blighted all the promise of his youth)
The patriot in a tyrant's league had join'd?
Let Ireland's loud-lamenting plains,
Let Tyne's and Humber's trampled swains,
Let menaced London tell
How impious guile made wisdom base;
How generous zeal to cruel rage gave place;
And how unbless'd he lived and how dishonour'd fell.

V.--1.

Thence never hath the Muse
Around his tomb Pierian roses flung:
Nor shall one poet's tongue
His name for music's pleasing labour choose.
And sure, when Nature kind
Hath deck'd some favour'd breast above the throng,
That man with grievous wrong
Affronts and wounds his genius, if he bends
To guilt's ignoble ends
The functions of his ill-submitting mind.

V.--2.

For worthy of the wise
Nothing can seem but virtue; nor earth yield
Their fame an equal field,
Save where impartial freedom gives the prize.
There Somers fix'd his name,
Enroll'd the next to William. There shall Time
To every wondering clime
Point out that Somers, who from faction's crowd,
The slanderous and the loud,
Could fair assent and modest reverence claim.

V.--3.

Nor aught did laws or social arts acquire,
Nor this majestic weal of Albion's land
Did aught accomplish, or to aught aspire,
Without his guidance, his superior hand.
And rightly shall the Muse's care
Wreaths like her own for him prepare,
Whose mind's enamour'd aim
Could forms of civil beauty draw
Sublime as ever sage or poet saw,
Yet still to life's rude scene the proud ideas tame.

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