Page:The Pleasures of Imagination - Akenside (1744).djvu/50

Amid the noontide walk a limpid rill
Gush thro' the trickling herbage, to the thirst
Of summer yielding the delicious draught80
Of cool refreshment; o'er the mossy brink
Shines not the surface clearer, and the waves
With sweeter music murmur as they flow?

⁠Nor this alone; the various lot of life
Oft from external circumstance assumes85
A moment's disposition to rejoice
In those delights which at a different hour
Would pass unheeded. Fair the face of spring,
When rural songs and odours wake the morn,
To every eye; but how much more to his,90
Round whom the bed of sickness long diffus'd
Its melancholy gloom! how doubly fair,
When first with fresh-born vigour he inhales
The balmy breeze, and feels the blessed sun
Warm at his bosom, from the springs of life95
Chasing oppressive damps and languid pain!

⁠Or shall I mention, where cœlestial truth
Her awful light discloses, to effulge
A more majestic pomp on beauty's frame?
For man loves knowledge, and the beams of truth100
More welcome touch his understanding's eye,
Than all the blandishments of sound, his ear,
Than all of taste his tongue. Nor ever yet

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