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Mark Akenside
November 9, 1721 – June 23, 1770
Poetry Listing
Please Note: This list is not comprehensive, but is an ongoing work of the love of poetry.
Within this area you will be able to read, and give your thoughts on the poetry listed.
Please, if you find an error, let me know.
Read More About Mark Akenside below poetry list
| | Poem Title | First Lines | Period | # Lines | # Reads | | 1: | A British Philippic | Whence this unwonted Transport in my Breast? | | | 996 | | 2: | A Song | The Shape alone let others prize, | | | 867 | | 3: | Affected Indifference - To The Same; Ode IV | Yes; you contemn the perjur'd maid | | | 939 | | 4: | Against Suspicion; Ode V | Oh fly! 'tis dire Suspicion's mien; | | | 873 | | 5: | Ambition And Content | While yet the world was young, and men were few, | | | 841 | | 6: | Amoret | If rightly tuneful bards decide, | | | 932 | | 7: | Female Beauty | What's Female Beauty, but an Art divine, | | | 919 | | 8: | For A Column At Runnymede | Thou, who the verdant plain dost traverse here | | | 854 | | 9: | For A Grotto | To me, whom in their lays the shepherds call | | | 905 | | 10: | For A Statue Of Chaucer At Woodstock | Such was old Chaucer. such the placid mien | | | 818 | | 11: | Friendship And Love | In vain thy lawless Fires contend with mine, | | | 889 | | 12: | Hymn To Cheerfulness | How thick the shades of evening close! | | | 858 | | 13: | Hymn To Science | Science! thou fair effusive ray | | | 1018 | | 14: | Hymn To The Naiads | O'er yonder eastern hill the twilight pale | | | 811 | | 15: | If Rightly Tuneful Bards Decide | If rightly tuneful bards decide, | | | 783 | | 16: | Love; An Elegy | Too much my heart of Beauty's power hath known, | | | 866 | | 17: | Me Tho' In Life's Sequester'd Vale | Me tho' in life's sequester'd vale | | | 944 | | 18: | O Youths And Virgins | O youths and virgins: o declining eld: | | | 787 | | 19: | Ode I(ii); The Remonstrance Of Shakespeare | If, yet regardful of your native land, | | | 834 | | 20: | Ode I; The Preface | On yonder verdant hilloc laid, | | | 829 | | 21: | Ode II(ii); On The Winter Soltice | The radiant ruler of the year | | | 883 | | 22: | Ode II; To Sleep | Thou silent power, whose welcome sway | | | 857 | | 23: | Ode III; To The Cuckow | O rustic herald of the spring, | | | 827 | | 24: | Ode IV; To The Honourable Charles Townshend In The Country | How oft shall i survey | | | 815 | | 25: | Ode IX(II); At Study | Whither did my fancy stray? | | | 800 | | 26: | Ode IX. To Curio | Thrice hath the spring beheld thy faded fame | | | 966 | | 27: | Ode On A Sermon Against Glory | Come then, tell me, sage divine, | | | 1088 | | 28: | Ode To The Country Gentlemen Of England | Thou, heedless Albion, what, alas, the while | | | 1138 | | 29: | Ode V; On Love Of Praise | Of all the springs within the mind | | | 800 | | 30: | On A Sermon Against Glory | Come then, tell me, sage divine, | | | 794 | | 31: | On Domestic Issues | Meek honor, female shame, | | | 830 | | 32: | On Leaving Holland | Farewell to Leyden's lonely bound, | | | 875 | | 33: | On Love, To A Friend | No, foolish youth, To virtuous fame | | | 814 | | 34: | On Lyric Poetry | Once more I join the Thespian choir, | | | 781 | | 35: | On Recovering From A Fit Of Sickness, In the Country | Thy verdant scenes, O Goulder's hill, | | | 785 | | 36: | On The Use Of Poetry | Not for themselves did human kind | | | 787 | | 37: | Taste | What, then, is taste but those internal powers, | | | 964 | | 38: | The Complaint | Away! away! | | | 918 | | 39: | The Nightingale | To-night retired, the queen of heaven | | | 1255 | | 40: | The Pleasures Of Imagination | With what attractive charms this goodly frame | | | 1058 | | 41: | The Pleasures of Imagination - The First Book | With what attractive charms this goodly frame | | | 963 | | 42: | The Pleasures of Imagination - The First Book - Poem | With what inchantment nature's goodly scene | | | 908 | | 43: | The Pleasures of Imagination - The First Book - The Argument | The subject proposed. Dedication. | | | 961 | | 44: | The Pleasures of Imagination - The Fourth Book - Poem | One effort more, one cheerful sally more, | | | 965 | | 45: | The Pleasures of Imagination - The General Argument | The pleasures of the imagination proceed either from natural objects, | | | 969 | | 46: | The Pleasures of Imagination - The General Argument | The pleasures of the imagination proceed either from natural objects, | | | 988 | | 47: | The Pleasures of Imagination - The Second Book | When shall the laurel and the vocal string | | | 965 | | 48: | The Pleasures of Imagination - The Second Book - Poem | Thus far of beauty and the pleasing forms | | | 959 | | 49: | The Pleasures of Imagination - The Second Book - The Argument | Introduction to this more difficult part of the subject. | | | 947 | | 50: | The Pleasures of Imagination - The Second Book - The Argument | The separation of the works of imagination from philosophy, | | | 1027 | | 51: | The Pleasures of Imagination - The Second Book - The Argument | The separation of the works of imagination from philosophy, | | | 893 | | 52: | The Pleasures of Imagination - The Third Book - Poem | What tongue then may explain the various fate | | | 1019 | | 53: | The Pleasures of Imagination - The Third Book - Poem | What tongue then may explain the various fate | | | 975 | | 54: | The Pleasures of Imagination - The Third Book - The Argument | Pleasure in observing the tempers and manners of men, | | | 983 | | 55: | The Pleasures of Imagination - The Third Book - The Argument | Pleasure in observing the tempers and manners of men, | | | 970 | | 56: | The Poet | Of all the various lots around the ball, | | | 957 | | 57: | The Virtuoso | Whilom by silver Thames's gentle stream, | | | 1059 | | 58: | The Wood Nymph | Approach in silence. 'tis no vulgar tale | | | 900 | | 59: | To A Friend, Unsuccessful In Love; Ode III | Indeed, my Phaedra, if to find | | | 837 | | 60: | To Caleb Hardinge, M.D. | With sordid floods the wintry Urn | | | 789 | | 61: | To Cordelia | From pompous life's dull masquerade, | | | 842 | | 62: | To Sir Francis Henry Drake, Baronet | Behold; the Balance in the sky | | | 820 | | 63: | To The Author Of Memoirs Of The House of Brandenburgh | The men renown'd as chiefs of human race, | | | 813 | | 64: | To The Country Gentlemen Of England | Whither is Europe's ancient spirit fled? | | | 812 | | 65: | To The Evening-Star | To-night retir'd the queen of heaven | | | 868 | | 66: | To The Honourable Charles Townshend: From The Country | Say, Townshend, what can London boast | | | 796 | | 67: | To The Muse | Queen of my songs, harmonious maid, | | | 802 | | 68: | To The Right Honourable Francis Earl Of Huntington | The wise and great of every clime, | | | 945 | | 69: | To The Right Reverend Benjamin Lord Bishop Of Winchester | For toils which patriots have endur'd, | | | 803 | | 70: | To Thomas Edwards, Esquire - On The Late Edition Of Mr. Pope's Work | Believe me, Edwards, to restrain | | | 845 | | 71: | To William Hall, Esquire: With The Works Of Chaulieu | Attend to Chaulieu's wanton lyre; | | | 871 | | 72: | Whoe'er Thou Art Whose Pat In Summer Lies | Whoe'er thou art whose path in summer lies | | | 777 | | 73: | Ye Powers Unseen | Ye powers unseen, to whom, the bards of Greece | | | 855 |
About:
Mark Akenside (November 9, 1721 – June 23, 1770), was an English poet and physician.
Akenside was born at Newcastle upon Tyne, the son of a butcher; he was slightly lame all his life from a wound he received as a child from his father's cleaver. All his relations were dissenters, and, after attending the Royal Free Grammar School of Newcastle, and a dissenting academy in the town, he was sent (1739) to Edinburgh to study theology with a view to becoming a minister, his expenses being paid from a special fund set aside by the dissenting community for the education of their pastors. He had already contributed The Virtuoso, in imitation of Spenser's style and stanza (1737) to the Gentleman's Magazine, and in 1738 A British Philippic, occasioned by the Insults of the Spaniards, and the present Preparations for War (also published separately).
After one winter as a theology student, he changed to medicine. He repaid the money that had been advanced for his theological studies, and became a deist. His politics, said Dr. Samuel Johnson, were characterized by an "impetuous eagerness to subvert and confound, with very little care what shall be established," and he is caricatured in the republican doctor of Tobias Smollett's Peregrine Pickle. He was elected a member of the Medical Society of Edinburgh in 1740. His ambitions already lay outside his profession, and his gifts as a speaker made him hope one day to enter Parliament. In 1740 he printed his "Ode on the Winter Solstice" in a small volume of poems. In 1741 he left Edinburgh for Newcastle and began to call himself surgeon, though it is doubtful whether he practised, and from the next year dates his life-long friendship with Jeremiah Dyson (1722-1776).
During a visit to Morpeth in 1738, he had the idea for his didactic poem, The Pleasures of the Imagination, which was well received, and was subsequently translated into more than one foreign language. He had already acquired a considerable literary reputation when he came to London about the end of 1743 and offered the work to Robert Dodsley for £120. Dodsley thought the price exorbitant, and only accepted the terms after submitting the manuscript to Alexander Pope, who assured him that this was "no everyday writer." The three books of this poem appeared in January 1744. His aim, Akenside tells us in the preface, was "not so much to give formal precepts, or enter into the way of direct argumentation, as, by exhibiting the most engaging prospects of nature, to enlarge and harmonize the imagination, and by that means insensibly dispose the minds of men to a similar taste and habit of thinking in religion, morals and civil life." His powers fell short of this ambition; his imagination was not brilliant enough to surmount the difficulties inherent in a poem dealing so largely with abstractions; but the work was well received. Thomas Gray wrote to Thomas Warton that it was "above the middling," but "often obscure and unintelligible and too much infected with the Hutchinson jargon."
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