The tyrant passions all subside,
  Fear, anger, pity, shame, and pride,
  No more my bosom move;
  Yet still I felt, or seemed to feel
  A kind of visionary zeal
  Of universal love.

  When lo! a voice, a voice I hear! 
  ’Twas Reason whispered in my ear
  These monitory strains;
  ’What mean’st thou, man? wouldst thou unbind
  The ties which constitute thy kind,
  The pleasures and the pains?

  ’The same Almighty Power unseen,
  Who spreads the gay or solemn scene
  To contemplation’s eye,
  Fixed every movement of the soul,
  Taught every wish its destined goal,
  And quickened every joy.

  ’He bids the tyrant passions rage,
  He bids them war eternal wage,
  And combat each his foe: 
  Till from dissensions concords rise,
  And beauties from deformities,
  And happiness from woe.

  ’Art thou not man, and dar’st thou find
  A bliss which leans not to mankind? 
  Presumptuous thought and vain
  Each bliss unshared is unenjoyed,
  Each power is weak unless employed
  Some social good to gain.

  ’Shall light and shade, and warmth and air. 
  With those exalted joys compare
  Which active virtue feels,
  When oil she drags, as lawful prize,
  Contempt, and Indolence, and Vice,
  At her triumphant wheels?

  ’As rest to labour still succeeds,
  To man, whilst virtue’s glorious deeds
  Employ his toilsome day,
  This fair variety of things
  Are merely life’s refreshing springs,
  To sooth him on his way.

  ’Enthusiast go, unstring thy lyre,
  In vain thou sing’st if none admire,
  How sweet soe’er the strain,
  And is not thy o’erflowing mind,
  Unless thou mixest with thy kind,
  Benevolent in vain?

  ’Enthusiast go, try every sense,
  If not thy bliss, thy excellence,
  Thou yet hast learned to scan;
  At least thy wants, thy weakness know,
  And see them all uniting show
  That man was made for man.’

MARK AKENSIDE

  FROM THE PLEASURES OF IMAGINATION

  [THE AESTHETIC AND MORAL INFLUENCE OF NATURE]

  Fruitless is the attempt,
  By dull obedience and by creeping toil
  Obscure, to conquer the severe ascent
  Of high Parnassus.  Nature’s kindling breath
  Must fire the chosen genius; Nature’s hand

Must string his nerves, and imp his eagle-wings,
Impatient of the painful steep, to soar
High as the summit, there to breathe at large
Ethereal air, with bards and sages old,
Immortal sons of praise.

* * * * *

Even 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 sounds, 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.