Page:The Pleasures of Imagination - Akenside (1744).djvu/99

Now their grey cincture skirts the doubtful sun;295
Now streams of splendor, thro' their opening veil
Effulgent, sweep from off the gilded lawn
Th' aerial shadows; on the curling brook,
And on the shady margin's quiv'ring leaves
With quickest lustre glancing; while you view300
The prospect, say, within your chearful breast
Plays not the lively sense of winning mirth
With clouds and sunshine chequer'd, while the round
Of social converse, to th' inspiring tongue
Of some gay nymph amid her subject-train,305
Moves all obsequious? Whence is this effect,
This kindred pow'r of such discordant things?
Or flows their semblance from that mystic tone
To which the new-born mind's harmonious pow'rs
At first were strung? Or rather from the links310
Which artful custom twines around her frame?

For when the diff'rent images of things
By chance combin'd, have struck the attentive soul
With deeper impulse, or connected long,
Have drawn her frequent eye; howe'er distinct315
Th' external scenes, yet oft th' ideas gain
From that conjunction an eternal tie,
And sympathy unbroken. Let the mind
Recal one partner of the various league,
Immediate, lo! the firm confed'rates rise,320
And each his former station strait resumes:

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