Classic and Contemporary Poetry
ODES: BOOK 1: ODE 5. AGAINST SUSPICION, by MARK AKENSIDE Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: O fly! 'tis dire suspicion's mien Last Line: To injure human kind. Subject(s): Love | ||||||||
I. O FLY! 'tis dire Suspicion's mien; And, meditating plagues unseen, The sorceress hither bends: Behold her torch in gall imbrued: Beholdher garment drops with blood Of lovers and of friends. II. Fly far! Already in your eyes I see a pale suffusion rise; And soon through every vein, Soon will her secret venom spread, And all your heart and all your head Imbibe the potent stain. III. Then many a demon will she raise To vex your sleep, to haunt your ways; While gleams of lost delight Raise the dark tempest of the brain, As lightning shines across the main Through whirlwinds and through night. IV. No more can faith or candour move; But each ingenuous deed of love, Which reason would applaud, Now, smiling o'er her dark distress, Fancy malignant strives to dress Like injury and fraud. V. Farewell to virtue's peaceful times: Soon will you stoop to act the crimes Which thus you stoop to fear: Guilt follows guilt: and where the train Begins with wrongs of such a stain, What horrors from the rear! VI. 'Tis thus to work her baleful power, Suspicion waits the sullen hour Of fretfulness and strife, When care the infirmer bosom wrings, Or Eurus waves his murky wings To damp the seats of life. VII. But come, forsake the scene unbless'd Which first beheld your faithful breast To groundless fears a prey: Come where, with my prevailing lyre, The skies, the streams, the groves conspire To charm your doubts away. VIII. Throned in the sun's descending car, What power unseen diffuseth far This tenderness of mind? What genius smiles on yonder flood? What god, in whispers from the wood, Bids every thought be kind? IX. O thou, whate'er thy awful name, Whose wisdom our untoward frame With social love restrains; Thou who, by fair affection's ties, Giv'st us to double all our joys And half disarm our pains; X. Let universal candour still, Clear as yon heaven-reflecting rill, Preserve my open mind; Nor this nor that man's crooked ways One sordid doubt within me raise To injure human kind. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE INVENTION OF LOVE by MATTHEA HARVEY TWO VIEWS OF BUSON by ROBERT HASS A LOVE FOR FOUR VOICES: HOMAGE TO FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN by ANTHONY HECHT AN OFFERING FOR PATRICIA by ANTHONY HECHT LATE AFTERNOON: THE ONSLAUGHT OF LOVE by ANTHONY HECHT A SWEETENING ALL AROUND ME AS IT FALLS by JANE HIRSHFIELD THE VIRTUOSO; IN IMITATION OF SPENCER'S STYLE AND STANZA by MARK AKENSIDE |
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