PLEASURES OF IMAGINATION. As Memnon's marble harp renowned of old By fabling Nilus, to the quivering touch Of Titan's ray, with each repulsive string Consenting, sounded through the warbling air Unbidden strains; e'en SO did Nature's hand To certain species of external things Attune the finer organs of the mind; So the glad impulse of congenial powers, Or of sweet sound, or fair-proportioned form, The grace of motion, or the bloom of light, Thrills through imagination's tender frame, From nerve to nerve; all naked and alive They catch the spreading rays; till now the soul At length discloses every tuneful spring, To that harmonious movement from without, Responsive. Then the inexpressive strain Diffuses its enchantment; Fancy dreams Of sacred fountains and Elysian Amid the vast creation; why ordained Through life and death to dart his piercing eye, With thoughts beyond the limits of his frame, But that the Omnipotent might send him forth In sight of mortal and immortal powers, As on a boundless theatre to run To chase each partial purpose from his breast; And through the mists of passion and of sense, And through the tossing tide of chance and pain, To hold his course unfaltering, while the voice Of Truth and Virtue, up the steep ascent Of nature, calls him to his high reward, The applauding smile of heaven? else wherefore burns, In mortal bosoms, this unquenched hope That breathes from day to day sublimer things, And mocks possession? wherefore darts the mind, With such resistless ardor to embrace Majestic forms; impatient to be free, Spurning the gross control of wilful might; Proud of the strong contention of her toils; Proud to be daring? Who but rather turns To heaven's broad fire his unconstrained view, Than to the glimmering of a waxen flame? Who that, from Alpine heights, his laboring eye Shoots round the wide horizon to survey Nilus or Ganges rolling his broad tide Through mountains, plains, through empires black with shade, And continents of sand, - will turn his gaze To mark the windings of a scanty rill That murmurs at his feet? The high-born soul Disdains to rest her heaven-aspiring wing Beneath its native quarry. Tired of earth And this diurnal scene, she springs aloft, Through fields of air pursues the flying storm; Rides on the volleyed lightning through the heavens; Or, yoked with whirlwinds and the northern blast, Sweeps the long track of day. Then high she soars The blue profound, and hovering o'er the sun Beholds him pouring the redundant the morn. Each passing Hour sheds tribute from her wings, And still new beauties meet his lonely walk, And loves unfelt attract him. Look, then, abroad through Nature, to the range Of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres, Wheeling unshaken through the Void immense, And speak, O man! does this capacious scene With half that kindling majesty dilate Thy strong conception, as when Amid the crowd of patriots; and his ULYSSES. IT little profits that an idle king By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades Vext the dim sea: I am become a Troy. I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades Forever and forever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnished, not to shine in use! As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little remains: but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things; and vile it |