Page:The Pleasures of Imagination - Akenside (1744).djvu/57

Of being, as with adamantine links,
Was drawn to perfect union and sustain'd
From everlasting? Hast thou felt the pangs
Of soft'ning sorrow, of indignant zeal255
So grievous to the soul, as thence to wish
The ties of nature broken from thy frame;
That so thy selfish, unrelenting heart
May cease to mourn its lot, no longer then
The wretched heir of evils not its own:260
O fair benevolence of gen'rous minds!
O man by nature form'd for all mankind!

He spoke; abash'd and silent I remain'd,
As conscious of my lips' offence, and aw'd
Before his presence, tho' my secret soul265
Disdain'd the imputation. On the ground
I fix'd my eyes; till from his airy couch
He stoop'd sublime, and touching with his hand
My dazzled forehead, Raise thy sight, he cry'd,
And let thy sense convince thy erring tongue.270

I look'd, and lo! the former scene was chang'd;
For verdant alleys and surrounding trees,
A solitary prospect, wide and wild,
Rush'd on my senses. 'Twas a horrid pile
Of hills with many a shaggy forest mix'd,275
With many a sable cliff and glitt'ring stream.
Aloft recumbent o'er the hanging ridge,