The pow'rs which move his fenfe with inftant joy, The features which attract his heart to love, He marks, combines, repofits. Other pow'rs And features of the felffame thing (unless The beautous form, the creature of his mind Requeft their clofe alliance) he o'erlooks Forgotten, or with felf-beguiling zeal Whene'er his paffions mingle in the work Half alters, half difowns. The tribes of men Thus from their diff'rent functions, and the fhapes Familiar to their eye, with art obtain,
Unconscious of their purpose, yet with art Obtain the Beauty fitting man to love,
Whose proud defires from Nature's homely toil Oft' turn away fastidious, asking still His mind's high aid to purify the form From matter's grofs communion, to fecure For ever from the meddling hand of Change Or rude Decay her features, and to add Whatever ornaments may fuit her mien Where'er he finds them scatter'd thro' the paths Of Nature or of Fortune; then he feats Th’accomplish'd image deep within his breast, Reviews it, and accounts it good and fair. Thus the one Beauty of the world entire, The univerfal Venus, far beyond
The keenest effort of created eyes*
And their most wide horizon dwells inthran'd
In ancient filence: at her footstool stands, An altar burning with eternal fire Unfully'd, unconfum'd. Here ev'ry hour, Here ev'ry moment, in their turns arrive Her offspring, an innumerable band Of fifters, comely all, but diff'ring far In age, in ftature, and expreffive mien, More than bright Helen from her new-born babe. To this maternal fhrine in turns they come,
Each with her facred lamp, that from the fource Of living flame which here immortal flows Their portions of its luftre they may draw For days, or months, or years, for ages fome, As their great parent's difcipline requires; Then to their fev'ral manfions they depart, In ftars, in planets, thro' the unknown shores Of yon' ethereal ocean. Who can tell Ev'n on the furface of this rolling earth
How many make abode? The fields, the groves, The winding rivers, and the azure main, Arc render'd folemn by their frequent feet,
Their rites fublime. There each her deftin'd home Informs with that pure radiance from the skies 676 Brought down, and shines thro'out her little sphere hxulting. Straight as travellers, by night
Turn toward a distant flame, so some fiteye Among the various tenants of the scene. Difcerns the heaven-born phantom feated there,
And owns her charms: hence the wide univerfe
Thro' all the feasons of revolving worlds
Bears witnefs with its people, gods and men,
To Beauty's blifsful pow'r, and with the voice 685 Of grateful admiration ftill refounds;
That voice to which is Beauty's frame divine
As is the cunning of the mafter's hand
To the sweet accent of the well-tun'd lyre.
Of gen'rous counfels and heroick deeds! Olet fome portion of thy matchless praise Dwell in my breaft, and teach me to adorn This unattempted theme! Nor be my thoughts Prefumpt'ous counted if amid the calm Which Hefper sheds along the vernal heav'n, If I from vulgar Superdition's walk Impatient steal, and from th' unfeemly rites Offplendid Adulation, to attend
With hymns thy prefence in the fylvan fhade, By their malignant footsteps unprofan'd. Come, O renowned Pow'r ! thy glowing mien Such, and fo elevated all thy form, As when the great barbarick lord, again And yet again diminish'd, hid his face Among the herd of fatraps and of kings, And at the lightning of thy lifted fpear
Crouch'd like a flave. Bring all thy 'martial fpoils,
Thy palms, thy laurels, thy triumphal fongs, Thy fmiling band of arts, thy godlike firès Of civil wifdom, thy unconquer'd youth," After fome glorious day rejoicing round Their new-erected trophy. Guide my feet Thro' fair Lyceum's walk, the olive shades Of Academus, and the sacred vale Haunted by steps divine, where once beneath That ever-living platane's ample boughs Iliffus, by Socratick sounds detain'd On his neglected urn attentive lay,
While Boreas ling'ring on the neighb'ring keep With beauteous Orithyia his love-tale
In filent awe fufpended: there let me
With blameless hand from thy unenvious fields 725
Transplant fome living bloffoms to adofn
My native clime, while far beyond the meed
Of Fancy's toil afpiring unlock
The fprings of ancient wifdom, while I add
(What cannot be disjoin'd from Beauty's praise) 730 Thy name and native drefs, thy works belov'd And honour'd, while to my compatriot youth I point the great example of thy fons, And tune to Attick themes the British lyre.
PLEASURES OF IMAGINATION.
INTRODUCTION to this more difficult part of the subject. Of trail and its three claffes, matter of fact, experimental or scientifical truth, (contradiftinguished from opinion) and univerfal truth; which daft is either metaphyfical or geometrical, either purely intellectual or pers fectly abftracted. On the power of difcerning truth depends that of acting with the view of an end, a circumftance effential to virtue. Of virtue, confidered in the Divine Mind as a perpetual and universal beneficence. Of human virtue, confidered as a system of particular fer timents and actions, fuitable to the defign of Providence and the con dition of man, to whom it conftitutes the chief good and the firft beauty. Of vice and its origin. Of ridicule; its general nature and final cause. Of the paffions, particularly of those which relate to evil natural or moral, and which are generally accounted painful, though not always unattended with Pleasure.
TH HUS far of Beauty and the pleafing forms Which man's untutor❜d fancy from the fcenes Imperfect of this ever-changing world
Creates and views enamour'd.
Severer themes demand, myfterious truth,
And virtue, fovran good; the fpells, the trains, The progeny, of Error; the dread fway Of Paffion, and whatever hidden stores From her own lofty deeds and from herfelf The mind acquires. Severer argument, Not lefs attractive nor deferving lefs
A conftant ear: for what are all the forms Educ'd by fancy from corporeal things, Greatness, or pomp, or fymmetry of parts ?
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