Taste

What, then, is taste but those internal powers,
Active and strong, and feeling alive
To each fine impulse? a discerning sense
Of decent and sublime, with quick disgust
From things deformed, or disarranged and gross
In species. This nor gems nor stores of gold,
Nor purple state nor culture can bestow;
But God alone, when first His active hand
Imprints the secret bias of the soul.

Mark Akenside

Mark Akenside was an 18th-century English poet and physician best known for his poem 'The Pleasures of Imagination,' which was first published in 1744. He was born on November 9, 1721, in Newcastle upon Tyne and received his education at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle, and the University of Edinburgh. Akenside's work was deeply influenced by the Enlightenment and classical antiquity. He also pursued a successful medical career, becoming a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1753. Akenside died on June 23, 1770.

Mark Akenside

The Pleasures of Imagination - The Second Book - The Argument

Mark Akenside, Simple Poetry

The Poet

Mark Akenside, Simple Poetry

Affected Indifference - To The Same; Ode IV

Mark Akenside, Simple Poetry

Love; An Elegy

Mark Akenside, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

On Taste.

---------Taste is from heaven,
An inspiration nature can't bestow;
Though nature's beauties, where a taste is given,
Warm the ideas of the soul to flow
With that intense, enthusiastic glow
That throbs the bosom, when the curious eye
Glances on beauteous things that give delight,
Objects of earth, or air, or sea, or sky,
That bring the very senses in the sight
To relish what we see:--but all is night
To the gross clown--nature's unfolded book,
As on he blunders, never strikes his eye;
Pages of landscape, tree, and flower, and brook,
Like bare blank leaves, he turns unheeded by.

John Clare

A Song

The Shape alone let others prize,
The Features of the Fair;
I look for Spirit in her Eyes,
And Meaning in her Air.
A Damask Cheek, an Iv'ry Arm,
Shall ne'er my Wishes win,
Give me an animated Form,
That speaks a Mind within.
A Face where awful Honour shines,
Where Sense and Sweetness move,
And Angel Innocence refines,
The Tenderness of Love.

These are the Soul of Beauty's frame,
Without whose vital Aid,
Unfinish'd all her Features seem,
And all her Roses dead.
But ah! where both their Charms unite,
How perfect is the View,
With ev'ry Image of Delight,
With Graces ever new.
Of Pow'r to charm the greatest Woe,
The wildest Rage control,
Diffusing Mildness o'er the Brow,
And Rapture thro' the Soul.
Their Pow'r but fain...

Mark Akenside

The Pleasures of Imagination - The Fourth Book - Poem

One effort more, one cheerful sally more,
Our destin'd course will finish. and in peace
Then, for an offering sacred to the powers
Who lent us gracious guidance, we will then
Inscribe a monument of deathless praise,
O my adventurous song. With steady speed
Long hast thou, on an untried voyage bound,
Sail'd between earth and heaven: hast now survey'd,
Stretch'd out beneath thee, all the mazy tracts
Of passion and opinion; like a waste
Of sands and flowery lawns and tangling woods,
Where mortals roam bewilder'd: and hast now
Exulting soar'd among the worlds above,
Or hover'd near the eternal gates of heaven,
If haply the discourses of the Gods,
A curious, but an unpresuming guest,
Thou might'st partake, and carry back some strain
Of divine wisdom, lawful to...

Mark Akenside

The Pleasures Of Imagination

BOOK I

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. Attend, ye gentle pow'rs
Of musical delight! and while I sing
Your gifts, your honours, dance around my strain.
Thou, smiling queen of every tuneful breast,
Indulgent Fancy! from the fruitful banks
Of Avon, whence thy rosy fingers cull
Fresh flowers and dews to sprinkle on the turf
Where Shakespeare lies, be present: and with thee
Let Fiction come, upon her vagrant wings
Wafting ten thousand colours through the air,
Which, by the glances of her magic eye,
She blends and shifts at will, through countless forms,

Mark Akenside

Me Tho' In Life's Sequester'd Vale

Me tho' in life's sequester'd vale
The Almighty sire ordain'd to dwell,
Remote from glory's toilsome ways,
And the great scenes of public praise;
Yet let me still with grateful pride
Remember how my infant frame
He temper'd with prophetic flame,
And early music to my tongue supply'd.
'Twas then my future fate he weigh'd,
And, This be thy concern, he said,
At once with Passion's keen alarms,
And Beauty's pleasurable charms,
And sacred Truth's eternal light,
To move the various mind of Man;
Till under one unblemish'd plan,
His Reason, Fancy, and his Heart unite.

Mark Akenside

Ode V; On Love Of Praise

Of all the springs within the mind
Which prompt her steps in fortune's maze,
From none more pleasing aid we find
Than from the genuine love of praise.
Nor any partial, private end
Such reverence to the public bears;
Nor any passion, virtue's friend,
So like to virtue's self appears.
For who in glory can delight
Without delight in glorious deeds?
What man a charming voice can slight,
Who courts the echo that succeeds?

But not the echo on the voice
More, than on virtue praise, depends;
To which, of course, it's real price
The judgment of the praiser lends.
If praise then with religious awe
From the sole perfect judge be sought,
A nobler aim, a purer law
Nor priest, nor bard, nor sage hath taught.
With which in character the same
Th...

Mark Akenside