Page:The Pleasures of Imagination - Akenside (1744).djvu/37

Book I. Or drest for pleasing wonder, or serene In beauty's rosy smile. It now remains, Thro' various being's fair-proportion'd scale To trace the rising lustre of her charms, From their first twilight, shining forth at length To full meridian splendour. Of degree The least and lowliest, in th' effusive warmth Of colours mingling with a random blaze, Doth beauty dwell. Then higher in the line And variation of determin'd shape, Where truth's eternal measures mark the bound Of circle, cube, or sphere. The third ascent Unites this varied symmetry of parts With colour's bland allurement; as the pearl Shines in the concave of its azure bed, And painted shells indent their speckled wreath, Then more attractive rise the blooming forms Thro' which the breath of nature has infus'd Her genial pow'r to draw with pregnant veins Nutritious moisture from the bounteous earth, In fruit and seed prolific: thus the flow'rs Their purple honours with the spring resume; And such the stately tree which autumn bends With blushing treasures. But more lovely still Is nature's charm, where to the full consent Of complicated members, to the bloom Of colour, and the vital change of growth, Life's holy flame and piercing sense are giv'n, And