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

60 Your equal doings: then for ever spake The high decree; that thou, cœlestial maid! Howe'er that grisly phantom on thy steps 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 scene 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'r 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 ways Of heaven's eternal destiny to man, For ever just, benevolent and wise: That 's awful steps, howe'er pursu'd By vexing fortune and intrusive , Should never be divided from her chast, Her fair attendant,. 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