ODES, DESCRIPTIVE AND ALLEGORICAL TO PITY. O THOU! the friend of man, assign'd When first Distress, with dagger keen, 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, There first the wren thy myrtles shed And while he sung the female heart, * Euripides. † A river in Sussex, Come, Pity! come; by Fancy's aid, Its southern site, its truth complete, There Picture's toil shall well relate, The buskin'd Muse shall near her stand, There let me oft, retired by day, There waste the mournful lamp of night, To hear a British shell' TO FEAR. THOU, to whom the world unknown, 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 Epode. In earliest Greece, to thee, with partial choice, Silent and pale, in wild amazement hung. 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, '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, O thou, whose spirit most possest TO SIMPLICITY. O THOU, by Nature taught To breathe her genuine thought, In numbers warmly pure, and sweetly strong: In Fancy, loveliest child, Thy babe, and Pleasure's, nursed the powers of song! Thou, who with hermit heart 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, 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! Though beauty cull'd the wreath, Still ask thy hand to range their order'd hues. |