Page:The Pleasures of Imagination - Akenside (1744).djvu/76

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The PLEASURES

To mutual terror and compassion's tears?
No sweetly-melting softness which attracts,
O'er all that edge of pain, the social pow'rs710
To this their proper action and their end?
—Ask thy own heart. When at the midnight hour,
Slow thro' that studious gloom, thy pausing eye
Led by the glimm'ring taper moves around
The sacred volumes of the dead; the songs715
Of Græcian bards, and records wrote by fame
For Græcian heroes, where the present pow'r
Of heav'n and earth surveys th' immortal page,
Ev'n as a father blessing, while he reads
The praises of his son. If then thy soul,720
Spurning the yoke of these inglorious days,
Mix in their deeds and kindle with their flame;
Say, when the prospect blackens on thy view,
When rooted from the base, heroic states
Mourn in the dust and tremble at the frown725
Of curst ambition; when the pious band[1]
Of youths who fought for freedom and their sires,
Lie side by side in gore; when ruffian-pride
Usurps the throne of justice, turns the pomp
Of public pow'r, the majesty of rule,730
The sword, the laurel, and the purple robe,

  1. ————when the pious band, &c.] The reader will here naturally recollect the fate of the sacred battalion of Thebes, which at the battle of Chæronea was utterly destroy'd, every man being found lying dead by his friend.
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