Mark Akenside Quotes

24 Sourced Quotes

This was Shakespeare's form;
Who walked in every path of human life,
Felt every passion; and to all mankind
Doth now, will ever, that experience yield
Which his own genius only could acquire.

Mark Akenside
The man forget not, though in rags he lies,
And know the mortal through a crown's disguise.

Mark Akenside
Seeks painted trifles and fantastic toys,
And eagerly pursues imaginary joys.

Mark Akenside
Speak, ye, the pure delight, whose favour'd steps The lamp of science, through the jealous maze Of nature guides, when haply you reveal Her secret honours.

Mark Akenside
Nor ever yet
The melting rainbow's vernal-tinctured hues
To me have shone so pleasing, as when first
The hand of science pointed out the path
In which the sun-beams gleaming from the west
Fall on the wat'ry cloud.

Mark Akenside
At last the Muses rose... And scattered... As they flew, Their blooming wreaths from fair Valelusa's bowers To Arno's myrtle border.

Mark Akenside
Thou silent power, whose welcome sway charms every anxious thought away; in whose divine oblivion drown'd, sore pain and weary toil grow mild, love is with kinder looks beguiled, and Grief forgets her fondly cherish'd wound; oh, whither hast thou flown, indulgent god? God of kind shadows and of healing dews, whom dost thou touch with thy Lethaean rod? Around whose temples now thy opiate airs diffuse?

Mark Akenside
There are certain powers in human nature which seem to hold a middle place between the organs of bodily sense and the faculties of moral perception: They have been Call'd by a very general name, THE POWERS OF IMAGINATION.

Mark Akenside
Nor ever yet the melting rainbow's vernal-tinctur'd hues to me have shone so pleasing, as when first the hand of science pointed out the path in which the sun-beams gleaming from the west fall on the watery cloud.

Mark Akenside
Hence when lightning fires the arch of heaven, and thunders rock the ground, when furious whirlwinds rend the howling air, and ocean, groaning from his lowest bed, heaves his tempestuous billows to the sky; amid the mighty uproar, while below the nations tremble, Shakespeare looks abroad from some high cliff, superior, and enjoys the elemental war.

Mark Akenside
Give me to learn each secret cause; Let number's figure motion's laws Revealed before me stand; These to great Nature's secret apply, And round the Globe, and through the sky, Disclose her working hand.

Mark Akenside
Is there a youth whose anxious heart
Labours with love's unpitied smart?

Mark Akenside
Is there in nature no kind power
To soothe affliction's lonely hour?
To blunt the edge of dire disease,
And teach these wintry shades to please?

Mark Akenside
How thick the shades of evening close!
How pale the sky with weight of snows!
Haste, light the tapers, urge the fire,
And bid the joyless day retire.

Mark Akenside
With what attractive charms this goodly frame
Of Nature touches the consenting hearts
Of mortal men; and what the pleasing stores
Which beauteous Imitation thence derives
To deck the poet's or the painter's toil,
My verse unfolds.

Mark Akenside
Thus was beauty sent from heaven, the lovely ministress of truth and good in this dark world.

Mark Akenside
Than Timoleon's arms require,
And Tully's curule chair, and Milton's golden lyre.

Mark Akenside
Truth and Good are one; and Beauty dwells in them, and they in her.

Mark Akenside
A double task to paint the finest features of the mind, and to most subtle and mysterious things give color, strength, and motion.

Mark Akenside
Hark! how the gentle echo from her cell
Talks through the cliffs, and murmuring o'er the stream,
Repeats the accent — we shall part no more.

Mark Akenside
Others of graver mien, behold, adorn'd
With holy ensigns, how sublime they move,
And bending oft their sanctimonious eyes,
Take homage of the simple-minded throng;
Ambassadors of heaven!

Mark Akenside
Different minds incline to different objects; one pursues the vast alone, the wonderful, the wild; another sighs for harmony and grace, and gentlest beauty.

Mark Akenside
SCIENCE! thou fair effusive ray
From the great source of mental Day,
Free, generous, and refin'd!
Descend with all thy treasures fraught,
Illumine each bewilder'd thought,
And bless my labour'g mind.

Mark Akenside
Mind, mind alone, bear witness, earth and heaven!
The living fountains in itself contains
Of beauteous and sublime.

Mark Akenside