Page:The Pleasures of Imagination - Akenside (1744).djvu/85

Rh A furious band that spurn him from the throne; And all is uproar. Thus ambition grasps The empire of the soul: thus pale revenge Unsheaths her murd'rous dagger; and the hands Of lust and rapine, with unholy arts, Watch to o'erturn the barrier of the laws That keeps them from their prey: thus all the plagues The wicked bear, or o'er the trembling scene The tragic muse discloses, under shapes Of honour, safety, pleasure, ease or pomp, Stole first into the mind. Yet not by all Those lying forms which fancy in the brain Engenders, are the kindling passions driv'n To guilty deeds; nor reason bound in chains, That vice alone may lord it: oft adorn'd With solemn pageants, folly mounts the throne; And plays her ideot-anticks like a queen. A thousand garbs she wears; a thousand ways She wheels her giddy empire.—Lo! thus far With bold adventure, to the Mantuan lyre I sing of nature's charms, and touch well-pleas'd A stricter note: now haply must my song Unbend her serious measure, and reveal In lighter strains, how folly's aukward arts Ex-