ODES,

DESCRIPTIVE AND ALLEGORICAL

TO PITY.

O THOU! the friend of man, assign'd
With balmy hands his wounds to bind,
And charm his frantic woe,

When first Distress, with dagger keen,
Broke forth to waste his destined scene,
His wild unsated foel

By Pella's bard, a magic name,

By all the griefs his thought could frame, Receive my humble mite

Long, Pity, let the nations view

Thy sky-worn robes of tenderest blue,

And eyes of dewy light!

But wherefore need I wander wide

To old Ilissus' distant side,

Deserted stream, and mute?

Wild Arunț too has heard thy strains,
And Echo, midst my native plains,
Been soothed by Pity's lute.

There first the wren thy myrtles shed
On gentlest Otway's infant head,
To him thy cell was shewn;

And while he sung the female heart,
With youth's soft notes unspoil'd by art,
Thy turtles mix'd their own.

* Euripides.

† A river in Sussex,

Come, Pity! come; by Fancy's aid,
Ev'n now my thoughts, relenting maid,
Thy temple's pride design:

Its southern site, its truth complete,
Shall raise a wild enthusiast heat
In all who view the shrine.

There Picture's toil shall well relate,
How chance, or hard involving fate,
O'er mortal bliss prevail :

The buskin'd Muse shall near her stand,
And sighing prompt her tender hand,
With each disastrous tale.

There let me oft, retired by day,
In dreams of passion melt away,
Allow'd with thee to dwell:

There waste the mournful lamp of night,
Till, Virgin, thou again delight

To hear a British shell'

TO FEAR.

THOU, to whom the world unknown,
With all its shadowy shapes, is shewn;
Who see'st appall'd th' unreal scene,
While Fancy lifts the veil between;
Ah Fear! ah, frantic Fear!

I know thy hurried step, thy haggard eye!

Like thee I start, like thee disorder'd fly,

For, lo! what monsters in thy train appear!

Danger, whose limbs of giant mould

What mortal eye can fix'd behold?

Who stalks his round, an hideous form,

Howling amidst the midnight storm;

Or throws him on the ridgy steep
Of some loose hanging rock to sleep:
And with him thousand phantoms join'd,
Who prompt to deeds accursed the mind :
And those, the fiends, who near allied,
O'er Nature's wounds, and wrecks preside;
While Vengeance, in the lurid air,
Lifts her red arm, exposed and bare:
On whom that ravening* brood of Fate,
Who lap the blood of Sorrow, wait;
Who, Fear, this ghastly train can see,
And look not madly wild like thee!

Epode.

In earliest Greece, to thee, with partial choice,
The grief-full Muse addrest her infant tongue;
The maids and matrons, on her awful voice,

Silent and pale, in wild amazement hung.
Yet he, the bardt who first invoked thy name,
Disdain'd in Marathon its power to feel :
For not alone he nursed the poet's flame,

But reach'd from Virtue's hand the patriot's steel. But who is he, whom later garlands grace,

Who left awhile o'er Hybla's dews to rove, With trembling eyes thy dreary steps to trace, Where thou and furies shared the baleful grove? Wrapt in thy cloudy veil th' incestuous queent Sigh'd the sad call her son and husband heard, When once alone it broke the silent scene,

And he the wretch of Thebes no more appear'd. O Fear! I know thee by my throbbing heart, Thy withering power inspired each mournful line, Though gentle Pity claim her mingled part, Yet all the thunders of the scene are thine!

* Sophocles' Electra.

+ Æschylus.

↑ Jocasta.

Antistrophe.

Thou who such weary lengths hast paat,
Where wilt thou rest, mad nymph, at iast?
Say, wilt thou shroud in haunted cell,
Where gloomy Rape and Murder dwell?
Or in some hallow'd seat,

'Gainst which the big waves beat,

Hear drowning seamen's cries in tempests brought. Dark Power! with shuddering, meek, submitted thought,

Be mine to read the visions old,

Which thy awakening bards have told

And, lest thou meet my blasted view,
Hold each strange tale devoutly true;
Ne'er be I found, by thee o'er-awed,
In that thrice-hallow'd eve abroad,
When ghosts, as cottage-maids believe,
Their pebbled beds permitted leave,
And goblins haunt, from fire, or fen,
Or mine, or flood, the walks of men!

O thou, whose spirit most possest
The sacred seat of Shakspeare's breast?
By all that from thy prophet broke,
In thy divine emotions spoke
Hither again thy fury deal,
Teach me but once like him to feel
His cypress wreath my meed decree,
And I, O Fear, will dwell with thee-

TO SIMPLICITY.

O THOU, by Nature taught

To breathe her genuine thought,

In numbers warmly pure, and sweetly strong:
Who first on mountains wiid,

In Fancy, loveliest child,

Thy babe, and Pleasure's, nursed the powers of song!

Thou, who with hermit heart
Disdain'st the wealth of art,

And gauds, and pageant weeds, and trailing pall:

But com'st a decent maid,

In Attic robe array'd,

O chaste, unboastful nymph! to thee I call!

By all the honey'd store

On Hybla's thymy shore,

By all her blooms, and mingled murmurs dear,

By her whose love-lorn woe,

In evening musings slow,

Soothed, sweetly sad, Electra's poet's ear:

By old Cephisus' deep,

Who spread his wavy sweep

In warbled wanderings round thy green retreat,
On whose enamell'd side,

When holy Freedom died,

No equal haunt allured thy future feet.

O sister meek of Truth,

To my admiring youth

Thy sober aid and native charms infuse!
The flowers that sweetest breathe,

Though beauty cull'd the wreath,

Still ask thy hand to range their order'd hues.