Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Ralph Waldo Emerson, comp. (1803–1882). Parnassus: An Anthology of Poetry. 1880.

Pleasures of Imagination

Mark Akenside (1721–1770)

AS Memnon’s marble harp renowned of old

By fabling Nilus, to the quivering touch

Of Titan’s ray, with each repulsive string

Consenting, sounded through the warbling air

Unbidden strains; e’en so did Nature’s hand

To certain species of external things

Attune the finer organs of the mind;

So the glad impulse of congenial powers,

Or of sweet sound, or fair-proportioned form,

The grace of motion, or the bloom of light,

Thrills through imagination’s tender frame,

From nerve to nerve; all naked and alive

They catch the spreading rays; till now the soul

At length discloses every tuneful spring,

To that harmonious movement from without,

Responsive. Then the inexpressive strain

Diffuses its enchantment; Fancy dreams

Of sacred fountains and Elysian groves,

And vales of bliss; the Intellectual Power

Bends from his awful throne a wondering ear,

And smiles; the passions gently soothed away,

Sink to divine repose, and love and joy

Alone are waking; love and joy serene

As airs that fan the summer. O attend,

Whoe’er thou art whom these delights can touch,

Whose candid bosom the refining love

Of nature warms; O, listen to my song,

And I will guide thee to her favorite walks,

And teach thy solitude her voice to hear,

And point her loveliest features to thy view.

Say, why was man so eminently raised

Amid the vast creation; why ordained

Through life and death to dart his piercing eye,

With thoughts beyond the limits of his frame,

But that the Omnipotent might send him forth

In sight of mortal and immortal powers,

As on a boundless theatre to run

The great career of justice; to exalt

His generous aim to all diviner deeds;

To chase each partial purpose from his breast;

And through the mists of passion and of sense,

And through the tossing tide of chance and pain,

To hold his course unfaltering, while the voice

Of Truth and Virtue, up the steep ascent

Of nature, calls him to his high reward,

The applauding smile of heaven? else wherefore burns,

In mortal bosoms, this unquenched hope

That breathes from day to day sublimer things,

And mocks possession? wherefore darts the mind,

With such resistless ardor to embrace

Majestic forms; impatient to be free.

Spurning the gross control of wilful might;

Proud of the strong contention of her toils;

Proud to be daring? Who but rather turns

To heaven’s broad fire his unconstrained view,

Than to the glimmering of a waxen flame?

Who that, from Alpine heights, his laboring eye

Shoots round the wide horizon to survey

Nilus or Ganges rolling his broad tide

Through mountains, plains, through empires black with shade,

And continents of sand,—will turn his gaze

To mark the windings of a scanty rill

That murmurs at his feet? The high-born soul

Disdains to rest her heaven-aspiring wing

Beneath its native quarry. Tired of earth

And this diurnal scene, she springs aloft,

Through fields of air pursues the flying storm;

Rides on the volleyed lightning through the heavens;

Or, yoked with whirlwinds and the northern blast,

Sweeps the long track of day. Then high she soars

The blue profound, and hovering o’er the sun

Beholds him pouring the redundant stream

Of light: beholds the unrelenting sway

Bend the reluctant planets to absolve

The fated rounds of time. Thence far effused

She darts her swiftness up the long career

Of devious comets; through its burning signs

Exulting circles the perennial wheel

Of nature, and looks back on all the stars,

Whose blended light, as with a milky zone,

Invests the orient. Now amazed she views

The empyreal waste, where happy spirits hold,

Beyond this concave heaven, their calm abode;

And fields of radiance, whose unfading light

Has travelled the profound six thousand years,

Nor yet arrived in sight of mortal things.

Nature’s care, to all her children just,

With richer treasures and an ampler state,

Endows at large whatever happy man

Will deign to use them. His the city’s pomp,

The rural honors his: whate’er adorns

The princely dome, the column and the arch,

The breathing marbles and the sculptured gold,

Beyond the proud possessor’s narrow claim,

His tuneful breast enjoys. For him the Spring

Distils her dews, and from the silken gem

His lucid leaves unfolds; for him the hand

Of Autumn tinges every fertile branch

With blooming gold, and blushes like the morn.

Each passing Hour sheds tribute from her wings,

And still new beauties meet his lonely walk,

And loves unfelt attract him.

Look, then, abroad through Nature, to the range

Of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres,

Wheeling unshaken through the Void immense,

And speak, O man! does this capacious scene

With half that kindling majesty dilate

Thy strong conception, as when Brutus rose

Refulgent from the stroke of Cæsar’s fate,

Amid the crowd of patriots; and his arm

Aloft extending, like eternal Jove,

When guilt brings down the thunder, called aloud

On Tully’s name, and shook his crimson steel,

And bade the Father of his Country, hail!

For lo! the tyrant prostrate in the dust,

And Rome again is free!