Page:The Pleasures of Imagination - Akenside (1744).djvu/23

Book I. 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, The 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 The Nile or Ganges rowl his wasteful tide 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 Thro' fields of air; pursues the flying storm; Rh