Odes on Several Subjects (Akenside)/Ode 3

by Mark Akenside

ODE III.
Against Suspicion.

 

O Fly! 'Tis dire Suspicion's mein:
And, meditating plagues unseen,
The sorc'ress hither bends:
Behold her torch in gall imbrued:
Behold——her garments drop with blood
Of lovers and of friends.

Fly far! Already in your eyes
I see a pale suffusion rise;
And soon thro' every vein,
Soon will her secret venom spread,
And all your heart and all your head
Imbibe the potent stain.

Then come the hours of shame and fear
The hints of horror seize your ear;
While gleams of lost delight
Raise the deep discord of the brain,
As light'ning shines along the main
Thro' whirlwinds and thro' night.

No more can faith or candor move;
But each ingenuous deed of love
Which once you would applaud,
Now, smiling o'er her dark distress,
Malignant fancy longs to dress
Like injury and fraud.

Farewel to virtue's peaceful times!
For soon you'll stoop to act the crimes
You thus can stoop to fear:
When vice begins her ugly train
With wrongs of such unmanly stain,
What horrors form the rear!

'Tis thus, to work her baleful pow'r,
Suspicion waits the sullen hour
Of fretfulness and strife,
When care th' infirmer bosom wrings,
Or Eurus shakes his gloomy wings
To damp the seats of life.

But come, forsake the scene unblest,
Which first beheld you candid breast,
To groundless fears a prey;
Come, where with my prevailing lyre
The skies, the streams, the groves conspire
To charm your doubts away.

Thron'd in the sun's descending car,
What Pow'r unseen diffuses far
This tenderness of mind?
What Genius smiles on every flood?
What God, in whispers from the wood,
Bids every heart be kind?

O thou, whate'er thy awful name,
Whose breath awak'd th' immortal flame
That moves my active veins;
Thou, who by fair affection's ties
Hast doubled all my future joys,
And half disarm'd my pains;

Let universal Candour still,
Clear as yon heav'n-reflecting rill,
Preserve my open mind;
Nor This, nor That man's crooked views,
One mean or cruel doubt infuse
To injure human kind.