Page:The Pleasures of Imagination - Akenside (1744).djvu/74

Your equal doings: then for ever spake
The high decree; that thou, cœlestial maid!
Howe'er that grisly phantom on thy steps655
May sometimes dare intrude, yet never more
Shalt thou descending to th' abode of man,
Alone indure the rancour of his arm,
Or leave thy lov'd Euphrosyné behind.
She ended; and the whole romantic scene660
Immediate vanish'd: rocks, and woods, and rills,
The mantling tent, and each mysterious form
Flew like the pictures of a morning dream,
When sun-shine fills the bed. A while I stood
Perplex'd and giddy; till the radiant pow'r665
Who bade the visionary landscape rise,
As up to him I turn'd, with gentlest looks
Preventing my enquiry, thus began.

There let thy soul acknowledge its complaint
How blind, how impious! There behold the ways670
Of heaven's eternal destiny to man,
For ever just, benevolent and wise:
That Virtue's awful steps, howe'er pursu'd
By vexing fortune and intrusive Pain,
Should never be divided from her chast,675
Her fair attendant, Pleasure. Need I urge
Thy tardy thought thro' all the various round
Of this existence, that thy soft'ning soul
At length may learn what energy the hand

Of