Page:The Pleasures of Imagination - Akenside (1744).djvu/40

26 Attentive turn, from dim oblivion call Her fleet, ideal band; and bid them, go! Break thro' time's barrier, and o'ertake the hour That saw the heav'ns created: then declare If aught were found in those external scenes To move thy wonder now. For what are all The forms which brute, unconscious matter wears, Greatness of bulk, or symmetry of parts? Not reaching to the heart, soon feeble grows The superficial impulse; dull their charms, And satiate soon, and pall the languid eye. Not so the moral species, nor the pow'rs Of genius and design; th' ambitious mind There sees herself: by these congenial forms Touch'd and awaken'd, with intenser act She bends each nerve, and meditates well-pleas'd Her features in the mirror. For of all The inhabitants of earth, to man alone Creative wisdom gave to lift his eye To truth's eternal measures; thence to frame The sacred laws of action and of will, Discerning justice from unequal deeds, And temperance from folly. But beyond This energy of truth, whose dictates bind Assenting reason, the benignant sire, To deck the honour'd paths of just and good, Has added bright imagination's rays: Where