MARK AKENSIDE: 1721-1770. Akenside, a physician at Northampton, and afterwards in London, is celebrated as the author of The Pleasures of Imagination, a poem full of fine imagery, expressed in rich and musical language. ADVANTAGES ARISING FROM A WELL-FORMED IMAGINATION. From The Pleasures of Imagination. O blest of heaven! whom not the languid songs Of luxury, the siren! not the bribes Of sordid wealth, nor all the gaudy spoils Of pageant honour, can seduce to leave Those ever-blooming sweets, which from the store To charm the enlivened soul! What though not all Will deign to use them. His the city's pomp, The princely dome, the column and the arch, With blooming gold and blushes like the morn. Ascends, but whence his bosom can partake This fair inspired delight: her tempered powers The world's foundations; if to these the mind Will be the change, and nobler. Would the forms 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, G WILLIAM COLLINS: 1721-1759. Collins, the son of a tradesman in Chichester, was educated at Winchester College, and afterwards at Magdalen College, Oxford. In 1746 he published his Odes, which failed to attract attention. The poet sank under the disappointment, and became indolent and dissipated. A few years afterwards he fell into a state of nervous imbecility, which continued till his death. His chief poems are his Odes, On the Passions, To Evening, and To Liberty. Mr Southey has remarked, that, though utterly neglected on their first appearance, the odes of Collins, in the course of one generation, without any adventitious aid to bring them into notice, were acknowledged to be the best of their kind in the language. THE PASSIONS. An Ode for Music. When Music, heavenly maid, was young, While yet in early Greece she sung, First, Fear, his hand, its skill to try, Next, Anger rushed, his eyes on fire, In lightnings owned his secret stings: And swept, with hurried hands, the strings. With woful measures, wan Despair- But thou, O Hope! with eyes so fair, She called on Echo still through all the song: And, where her sweetest theme she chose, A soft responsive voice was heard at every close; And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair: And longer had she sung-but, with a frown, He threw his blood-stained sword in thunder down, The war-denouncing trumpet took, And blew a blast so loud and dread, Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe; And, ever and anon, he beat The doubling drum, with furious heat; And though sometimes, each dreary pause between, Her soul-subduing voice applied, Yet still he kept his wild unaltered mien ; While each strained ball of sight seemed bursting from his head. Thy numbers, Jealousy, to nought were fixed; Of differing themes the veering song was mixed, And now it courted Love, now, raving, called on Hate. With eyes upraised, as one inspired, And from her wild sequestered seat, In notes by distance made more sweet, Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul: Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole : Love of peace, and lonely musing, In hollow murmurs died away. But, oh, how altered was its sprightlier tone! Her buskins gemmed with morning dew, Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung, The hunter's call, to Faun and Dryad known; The oak-crowned sisters, and their chaste-eyed queen, Peeping from forth their alleys green; Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear; And Sport leaped up, and seized his beechen spear. Last, came Joy's ecstatic trial: He, with viny crown advancing, First to the lively pipe his hand addressed; To some unwearied minstrel dancing While as his flying fingers kissed the strings, As if he would the charming air repay, |