More lovely than when Lucifer displays
His beaming forehead thro' the gates of morn,
To lead the train of Phœbus and the spring...

On TASTE.
(AKENSIDE.)

SAY, what is Taste, but the internal pow'rs
Active, and strong, and feelingly alive
To each fine impulse ? a discerning sense
Of decent and sublime, with quick disgust
From things deform'd, or disarrang'd, or gross
In species? This nor gems, nor stores of gold,
Nor purple state, nor culture can bestow;
But God alone, when first his active hand
Imprints the sacred bias of the soul.
He, mighty parent! wise and just in all,
Free as the vital breeze or light of heav'n,
Reveals the charms of nature. Ask the swain
Who journeys homeward from a summer-day's
Long labour, why, forgetful of his toils
And due repose, he loiters to behold
The sunshine gleaming, as through amber-clouds,
O'er all the western sky; full soon I ween,
His rude expression and untutor'd airs,
Beyond the pow'r of language, will unfold
The form of beauty smiling at his heart,
How lovely! how commanding! But tho' heav'n
In ev'ry breast hath sown these early seeds
Of love and admiration, yet in vain
Without fair culture's kind, parental aid,
Without enlivening suns, and genial show'rs,
And shelter from the blast, in vain we hope
The tender plant should rear its blooming head,
Or yield the harvest promis'd in its spring.
Nor yet will every soil with equal stores
Repay the tiller's labour; or attend

His will, obsequious, whether to produce
The olive or the laurel. Diffrent minds
Incline to diff'rent objects; one pursues
The vast alone, the wonderful, the wild;
Another sighs for harmony, and grace,
And gentlest beauty. Hence when lightning fires

The arch of heav'n, and thunders rock the ground;
When furious whirlwinds rend the howling air,
And ocean, groaning from his lowest bed,
Heaves his tempestuous billows to the sky;
Amid the mighty uproar, while below
The nations tremble, Shakespear looks abroad
From some high cliff, superior, and enjoys
The elemental war. But Waller longs,
All on the margin of some flow'ry stream,
To spread his careless limbs amid the cool
Of plantain shades, and to the list ning deer
The tale of slighted vows and love's disdain
Resounds soft-warbling all the live-long day
Consenting Zephyr sighs; the weeping rill
Joins in his plaint, melodious; mute the groves ;
And hill and dale with all their echoes mourn :.
Sich and so various are the tastes of men:

The PLEASURES arising from a CULTIVATED

MAGINATION..

(AKENSIDE.)

O BLEST of heav'n, whom not the languid songs
Of luxury, the Syren! not the bribes

Of sordid wealth, nor all the gaudy spoils
Of pageant honour, can seduee to leave

Those ever-blooming sweets, which from the store
Of nature fair imagination culls

To charm th' enliven'd soul! What tho' not all
Of mortal offspring can attain the height
Of envied life; tho' only few possess
Patrician treasures or imperial state;
Yet 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 honours his. Whate'er adorns
The princely dome, the column, and the arch,
The breathing marbles and the sculptur'd gold,
Beyond the proud possessor's narrow claim,
His tuneful breast enjoys. For him, the spring
Distils her dews, and from the silken gem

Its 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. Not a breeze
Flies o'er the meadow, not a cloud imbibes
The setting sun's effulgence, not a strain
From all the tenants of the warbling shade
Ascends, but whence his bosom can partake
Fresh pleasure, unreprov'd. Nor thence partakes
Fresh pleasure only for th' attentive mind,
By this harmonious action on her pow'rs,
Becomes herself harmonious: wont so oft
In outward things to meditate the charm
Of sacred order, soon she seeks at home
To find a kindred order, to exert
Within herself this elegance of love,
This fair-inspir'd delight: her temper'd pow'rs
Refine at length, and every passion wears
A chaster, milder, more attractive mien.
But if to ampler prospects, if to gaze
On nature's form where, negligent of all
These lesser graces, she assumes the port
Of that eternal majesty that weigh'd
The world's foundations, if to these the mind
Exalts her daring eye; then mightier far
Will be the change, and nobler. Would the forms
Of servile custom cramp her gen'rous pow'rs?
Would sordid politics, the barb'rous growth
Of ignorance and rapine, bow her down
To tame pursuits, to indolence and fear?
Lo! she appeals to nature, to the winds
And rolling waves, the sun's unwearied course,,
The elements and seasons: all declare
For what th' eternal Maker has ordain'd
The pow'rs of man: we feel within ourselves.
His energy divine: he tells the heart,
He meant, he made us to behold and love
What he beholds and loves, the general orb,
Of life and being; to be great like him,,
Beneficent and active. Thus the men,

Whom nature's works can charm, with God himself Hold converse: grow familiar, day by day,

With his conceptions, act upon his plan;
And form to his, the relish of their souls.

On GREATNESS.

(AKENSIDE.)

SAY, why was man so eminently rais'd
Amid the vast creation; why ordain'd
Thro' life and death to dart his piercing eye,
With thoughts beyond the limit of his frame;
But that th' Omnipotent might send him forth
In sight of mortal and immortal pow'rs,
As on a boundless theatre, to run
The great career of justice; to exalt
His gen'rous aim to all diviner deeds;
To chase each partial purpose from his breast :
And thro' the mists of passion and of sense,
And thro' the tossing tide of chance and pain,
To hold his course unfalt'ring, while the voice
Of truth and virtue, up the steep ascent
Of nature, calls him to his high reward,

Th' applauding smile of heav'n? 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 ardour, to embrace
Majestic forms: impatient to be free,
Spurning the gross controul of wilful might;
Proud of the strong contention of her toils;
Proud to be daring? Who but rather turns
To heav'n's broad fire his unconstrained view,
Than to the glimmering of a waxen flame?
Who that, from Alpine heights, his lab'ring eye
Shoots round the wide horizon, to survey
Nilus or Ganges rolling his bright wave
Thro' mountains, plains, thro' 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 heav'n-aspiring wing
Beneath its native quarry. Tir'd of earth
And this diurnal scene, she springs aloft
Through fields of air; pursues the flying storm;

:

Rides on the volley'd lightning thro' the heav'ns;
Or, yok'd with whirlwinds and the northern blast,
Sweeps the long tract of day. Then high she soars
The blue profound, and hovering round the sun,
Beholds him pouring the redundant stream
Of light; beholds his unrelenting sway
Bend the reluctant planets to absolve
The fated rounds of time. Thence far effus'd
She darts her swiftness up the long career
Of devious comets; thro' its burning signs
Exulting measures the perennial wheel
Of nature, and looks back on all the stars,
Whose blended light, as with a milky zone,
Invests the orient. Now amaz'd she views
Th' empyreal waste, where happy spirits hold,
Beyond this concave heav'n, their calm abode;
And fields of radiance, whose unfading light
Has travell'd the profound six thousand years,
Nor yet arrives in sight of mortal things.
Ev'n on the barriers of the world untir'd
She meditates th' eternal deep below;
Till, half recoiling, down the headlong steep
She plunges.; soon o'erwhelm'd and swallow'd up
In that immense of being. There her hopes
Rest at the fated goal. For from the birth
Of mortal man, the sovereign Maker said,
That not in humble nor in brief delight,
Not in the fading echoes of renown,
Pow'r's purple robes, nor pleasure's flow'ry lap,
The soul should find enjoyment: but from these
Turning disdainful to an equal good,
Thro' all th' ascent of things enlarge her view,
Till every bound at length should disappear,
And infinite perfection close the scene.

On NOVELTY.
(AKENSIDE.)

CALL now to mind what high capacious powers
Lie folded up in man; how far beyond
The praise of mortals, may th' eternal growth
Of nature, to perfection half divine,
Expand the blooming soul. What pity then