Yet now, the hour, the scene, the occasion known, Too true the perils of the present hour, Where toils exceeding toils our strength o'erpower! Yet whither can we turn, what road pursue, Thus while he spoke, around from man to man Not twice nine summers yet matured his thought. But now the horrors that around him roll, Thus roused to action his rekindling soul. With fix'd attention pondering in my mind The dark distresses on each side combin'd: While here we linger in the pass of fate, I see no moment left for sad debate. For, some decision if we wish to form, Ere yet our vessel sink beneath the storm, Her shatter'd state and yon desponding crew At once suggest what measures to pursue. The labouring hull already seems half-fill'd With waters through a hundred leaks distill'd; As in a dropsy, wallowing with her freight, Half-drown'd she lies, a dead inactive weight; Thus drench'd by every wave, her riven deck Stripp'd and defenceless floats a naked wreck; Her wounded flanks no longer can sustain These fell invasions of the bursting main. At every pitch the o'erwhelming billows bend, Beneath their load, the quivering bowsprit end. A fearful warning! since the masts on high On that support with trembling hope rely. At either pump our seamen pant for breath, In dark dismay anticipating death. Still all our power th' increasing leak defy : We sink at sea, no shore, no haven nigh. One dawn of hope yet breaks athwart the gloom, To light and save us from the wat'ry tomb, That bids us shun the death impending here; Fly from the following blast, and shoreward steer. "Tis urged indeed, the fury of the gale Precludes the help of every guiding sail; And driven before it on the watery waste, To rocky shores and scenes of death we haste. But haply Falconera we may shun; And far to Grecian coasts is yet the run: Less harass'd then, our scudding ship may bear Th' assaulting surge repell'd upon her rear; Even then the wearied storms as soon shall die, Or less torment the groaning pines on high. Should we at last be driven by dire decree Too near the fatal margin of the sea, The hull dismasted there a while may ride, With lengthen'd cables on the raging tide. Perhaps kind Heaven, with interposing power, May curb the tempest ere that dreadful hour. But here ingulf'd and foundering while we stay Fate hovers o'er and marks us for her prey. He said :-Palemon saw, with grief of heart, The storm prevailing o'er the pilot's art; In silent terror and distress involved, He heard their last alternative resolved. High beat his bosom; with such fear subdued; Beneath the gloom of some enchanted wood, Oft in old time the wandering swain explored The midnight wizards' breathing rites abhorr'd; Trembling approach'd their incantations fell, And, chill'd with horror, heard the songs of hell. Arion saw, with secret anguish moved, The deep affliction of the friend he loved; And, all awake to friendship's genial heat, His bosom felt consenting tumults beat. Alas! no season this for tender love; Far hence the music of the myrtle grove! 2 U The rocky shelves, in safety to the shore. With comfort's soothing voice, from hope deceived, | This floating lumber shall sustain them o'er Unhappy partners in a wayward fate! The firmest front when greatest ills are near! But if, determined by the will of Heaven, Our helpless bark at last ashore is driven, These counsels follow'd, from the wat'ry grave Our floating sailors in the surf may save. And first let all our axes be secured, To cut the masts and rigging from aboard. Then to the quarters bind each plank and oar, To float between the vessel and the shore. The longest cordage too must be convey'd On deck, and to the weather rails belay'd. So they who haply reach alive the land, Th' extended lines may fasten on the strand. Whene'er loud thundering on the leeward shore, While yet aloof we hear the breakers roar, Thus for the terrible event prepared, Brace fore and aft to starboard every yard. So shall our masts swim lighter on the wave, And from the broken rocks our seamen save. Then westward turn the stem, that every mast May shoreward fall, when from the vessel cast.When o'er her side once more the billows bound, Ascend the rigging till she strikes the ground: And when you hear aloft the alarming shock That strikes her bottom on some pointed rock, The boldest of our sailors must descend, The dangerous business of the deck to tend; Then each, secured by some convenient cord, Should cut the shrouds and rigging from the board. Let the broad axes next assail each mast! And booms, and oars, and rafts to leeward cast. Thus, while the cordage stretch'd ashore may guide Our brave companions through the swelling tide, I know among you some full oft have view'd, With murd'ring weapons arm'd, a lawless brood, On England's vile inhuman shore who stand, The foul reproach and scandal of our land! To rob the wanderers wreck'd upon the strand. These, while their savage office they pursue, Oft wound to death the helpless, plunder'd crew, Who, 'scaped from every horror of the main, Implored their mercy, but implored in vain. But dread not this!-a crime to Greece unknown, Such blood-hounds all her circling shores disown; Her sons, by barbarous tyranny oppress'd, Can share affliction with the wretch distress'd: Their hearts, by cruel fate inur'd to grief, Oft to the friendless stranger yield relief. With conscious horror struck, the naval band Detested for a while their native land: They cursed the sleeping vengeance of the laws, That thus forgot her guardian sailors' cause. Meanwhile the master's voice again they heard, Whom, as with filial duty all revered. No more remains-but now a trusty band Must ever at the pump industrious stand; And while with us the rest attend to wear, Two skilful seamen to the helm repair!O Source of life! our refuge and our stay! Whose voice the warring elements obey, On thy supreme assistance we rely; Thy mercy supplicate, if doom'd to die! Perhaps this storm is sent, with healing breath, From neighbouring shores to scourge disease and death! 'Tis ours on thine unerring laws to trust: With thee, great Lord! "whatever is, is just." FROM THE SAME. The vessel going to pieces-death of Albert. AND now, lash'd on by destiny severe, With horror fraught the dreadful scene drew near! The ship hangs hovering on the verge of death, Hell yawns, rocks rise, and breakers roar beneath! In vain, alas! the sacred shades of yore Would arm the mind with philosophic lore; In vain they'd teach us, at the latest breath, To smile serene amid the pangs of death. Even Zeno's self, and Epictetus old, This fell abyss had shudder'd to behold. Had Socrates, for godlike virtue famed, And wisest of the sons of men proclaim'd, Beheld this scene of frenzy and distress, His soul had trembled to its last recess !— O yet confirm my heart, ye powers above, This last tremendous shock of fate to prove; The tottering frame of reason yet sustain ; Nor let this total ruin whirl my brain! In vain the cords and axes were prepared, Her giant bulk the dread concussion feels, As o'er the surge the stooping main-mast hung, Still on the rigging thirty seamen clung: Some, struggling, on a broken crag were cast, And there by oozy tangles grappled fast: Awhile they bore th' o'erwhelming billows' rage, Unequal combat with their fate to wage; Till all benumb'd and feeble they forego Their slippery hold, and sink to shades below. Some, from the main-yard-arm impetuous thrown On marble ridges, die without a groan. Three with Palemon on their skill depend, And from the wreck on oars and rafts descend. Now on the mountain-wave on high they ride, Then downward plunge beneath th' involving tide; Till one, who seems in agony to strive, Next, O unhappy chief! th' eternal doom Tugs at his yearning heart with powerful strain; And strives in vain his fetter'd limbs to clear; 66 MARK AKENSIDE. [Born, 1721. Died, 1770.] Ir may be easy to point out in Akenside a superfluous pomp of expression; yet the character which Pope bestowed on him, "that he was not an every day writer,"* is certainly apparent in the decided tone of his moral sentiments, and in his spirited maintenance of great principles. His verse has a sweep of harmony that seems to accord with an emphatic mind. He encountered in his principal poem the more than ordinary difficulties of a didactic subject. "To paint the finest features of the mind, And to most subtle and mysterious things Give colour, strength, and motion."-Book i. The object of his work was to trace the various [* While he was yet unknown.] Viz., his comparison of the Votary of Imagination to a Knight Errant in some enchanted paradise, Pleasures of Imagination, book iii. 1, 507; in his sketch of the village matron, book i. 1, 255; and in a passage of book iii. at line 379, beginning "But were not nature thus endowed at pleasures which we receive from nature and art to their respective principles in the human imagination, and to show the connection of those principles with the moral dignity of man, and the final purposes of his creation. His leading speculative ideas are derived from Plato, Addison, Shaftesbury, and Hutchinson. To Addison he has been accused of being indebted for more than he acknowledged; but surely in plagiarisms from the Spectator it might be taken for granted, that no man could have counted on concealment; and there are only three passages (I think) in his poem where his obligations to that source are worthy of notice.† Independent of these, it is large." His ideas of the final cause of our delight in the vast and illimitable, is the same with one expressed in the Spectator, No. 413. But Addison and he borrowed it in common from the sublime theology of Plato. The leading hint of his well-known passage, "Say, why was man so eminently raised," &c., is avowedly taken from Longinus. lover embracing the urn of his deceased mistress. On the subject of the passions, in book ii., when our attention evidently expects to be disengaged from abstraction, by spirited draughts illustrative of their influence, how much are we disappointed by the cold and tedious episode of Harmodius's vision, an allegory which is the more intolerable, because it professes to teach us resignation to the will of Heaven, by a fiction which neither imposes on the fancy nor communicates a moral to the understanding. Under the head of "Beauty" he only personifies Beauty herself, and her image leaves upon the mind but a vague impression of a beautiful woman, who might have been anybody. He introduces indeed some illustrations under the topic of ridicule, but in these his solemn manner overlaying the levity of his subjects unhappily produces a contrast which approaches itself to the ridiculous. In treating of novelty he is rather more descriptive; we have the youth breaking from domestic endearments in quest of rue that he adopted Addison's threefold division of the sources of the pleasures of the imagination; but in doing so he properly followed a theory which had the advantage of being familiar to the reader; and when he afterward substituted another, in recasting his poem, he profited nothing by the change. In the purely ethical and didactic parts of his subject he displays a high zeal of classical feeling, and a graceful development of the philosophy of taste. Though his metaphysics may not always be invulnerable, his general ideas of moral truth are lofty and prepossessing. He is peculiarly eloquent in those passages in which he describes the final causes of our emotions of taste: he is equally skilful in delineating the processes of memory and association; and he gives an animated view of Genius collecting her stores for works of excellence. All his readers must recollect with what a happy brilliancy he comes out in the simile of art and nature, dividing our admiration when he compares them to the double appearance of the sun distracting his Per-knowledge, the sage over his midnight lamp, the sian worshipper. But "non satis est pulchra esse poemata, dulcia sunto." The sweetness which we miss in Akenside is that which should arise from the direct representations of life, and its warm realities and affections. We seem to pass in his poem through a gallery of pictured abstractions rather than of pictured things. He reminds us of odours which we enjoy artificially extracted from the flower instead of inhaling them from its natural blossom. It is true that his object was to teach and explain the nature of mind, and that his subject led him necessarily into abstract ideas, but it admitted also of copious scenes, full of solid human interest, to illustrate the philosophy which he taught. Poetry, whatever be its title, should not make us merely contemplate existence, but feel it over again. That descriptive skill which expounds to us the nature of our own emotions, is rather a sedative than a stimulant to enthusiasm. The true poet renovates our emotions, and is not content with explaining them. Even in a philosophical poem on the imagination, Akenside might have given historical tablets of the power which he delineated; but his illustrations for the most part only consist in general ideas fleetingly personified. There is but one pathetic passage (I think) in the whole poem, namely, that in which he describes the virgin at her romance, and the village matron relating her stories of witchcraft. Short and compressed as those sketches are, they are still beautiful glimpses of reality, and it is expressly from observing the relief which they afford to his didactic and declamatory passages, that we are led to wish that he had appealed more frequently to examples from nature. It is disagreeable to add, that unsatisfactory as he is in illustrating the several parts of his theory, he ushers them in with great promises, and closes them with selfcongratulation. He says, "Thus with a faithful aim have we presumed Adventurous to delineate nature's form " when, in fact, he had delineated very little of it. He raises triumphal arches for the entrance and exit of his subject, and then sends beneath them a procession of a few individual ideas. He altered the poem in maturer life, but with no accession to its powers of entertainment. Harmodius was indeed dismissed, as well as the philosophy of ridicule; but the episode of Solon was left unfinished, and the whole work made rather more dry and scholastic; and he had even the bad taste, I believe, to mutilate some of those fine passages, which, in their primitive state, are still deservedly admired and popular.* FROM "THE PLEASURES OF IMAGINATION." BOOK I. The subject proposed-Difficulty of treating it poetically WITH what attractive charms this goodly frame My verse unfolds. Attend, ye gentle Powers [* Akenside holds a high place among British Poets. He had all the qualities natural and acquired of a great poet. Ilis mind was imbued with classic lore-with lofty conceptions, and that love and knowledge of nature which no book can communicate. His ear was correct, and his blank verse deserves to be studied by all who would excel in this truly English measure. Of his smaller poems the Hymn to the Naiads stands pre-eminent, breathing as it does the very spirit of Callimachus and antiquity. His inscriptions are among the best in our language, and Southey and Wordsworth have profited largely by them. His Odes are tame productions; that to the Earl of Huntingdon has most admirers: it is good, but it is not excellent.] strain. Your gifts, your honours, dance around my And join this festive train? for with thee comes Be present all ye genii, who conduct The wandering footsteps of the youthful bard, Oft have the laws of each poetic strain Of high Parnassus. Nature's kindling breath Untasted springs, to drink inspiring draughts, From Heaven my strains begin; from Heaven The flame of genius to the human breast, globe, And Wisdom's mien celestial. From the first Of days, on them his love divine he fix'd, His admiration: till in time complete, But not alike to every mortal eye Is this great scene unveil'd. For since the claims For as old Memnon's image, long renown'd |