Odes on Several Subjects (Akenside)/Ode 7

by Mark Akenside

ODE VII.
To a Friend, on the Hazard of
falling in Love.

 

NO, foolish boy—To virtuous fame
If now thy early hopes be vow'd,
If true ambition's nobler flame
Command thy footsteps from the croud,
Lean not to Love's inchanting snare;
His dances, his delights beware,

Nor mingle in the band of young and fair.

By thought, by dangers, and by toils,
The wreath of just renown is worn;
Nor will ambition's awful spoils
The flowry pomp of ease adorn:

But Love dissolves the nerve of thought;
By Love unmanly fears are taught;

And Love's reward with slothful arts is bought.

True, where the Muses, where the pow'rs
Of softer wisdom, easier wit,
Assist the Graces and the Hours
To render beauty's praise compleat,
The fair may then perhaps impart
Each finer sense, each winning art,

And more than schools adorn the manly heart.

If then, from Love's deceit secure,
Such bliss be all thy heart intends,
Go, where the white-wing'd evening hour
On Delia's vernal walk descends:
Go, while the pleasing, peaceful scene
Becomes her voice, becomes her mien,

Sweet as her smiles, and as her brow serene.

Attend, while that harmonious tongue
Each bosom, each desire commands;
Apollo's lute by Hermes strung
And touch'd by chaste Minerva's hands,
Attend. I feel a force divine,
O Delia, win my thoughts to thine,

That half thy graces seem already mine.

Yet conscious of the dang'rous charm,
Soon would I turn my steps away;
Nor oft provoke the lovely harm,
Nor once relax my reason's sway.
But thou, my friend—What sudden sighs?
What means the blush that comes and flies?

Why stop? why silent? why avert thy eyes?

So soon again to meet the fair?
So pensive all this absent hour?
—O yet, unlucky youth, beware,
While yet to think is in thy pow'r.

In vain with friendship's flatt'ring name
Thy passion masks its inward shame;

Friendship, the treach'rous fuel of thy flame!

Once, I remember, tir'd of Love,
I spurn'd his hard, tyrannic chain,
Yet won the haughty fair to prove
What sober joys in friendship reign.
No more I sigh'd, complain'd, or swore;
The nymph's coy arts appear'd no more,

But each could laugh at what we felt before.

Well-pleas'd we pass'd the chearful day,
The unreserv'd discourse resign'd,
And I inchanted to survey
One gen'rous woman's real mind:
But soon I wonder'd what possess'd
Each wakeful night my anxious breast;

No other friendship e'er had broke my rest!

Fool that I was—And now, ev'n now
While thus I preach the Stoic strain,
Unless I shun Dione's view,
An hour unsays it all again.
O friend!—when Love directs her eyes
To pierce where every passion lies,

Where is the firm, the cautious, or the wise?