Wild Arun* too has heard thy strains,
And Echo 'midst my native plains
Been sooth'd by Pity's lute:
There first the wren thy myrtles shed
On gentlest Otway's infant head;
To him thy cell was shown;
And while he sung the female heart,
With youth's soft notes unspoil'd by art,
Thy turtles mix'd their own.
Come, Pity! come; by Fancy's aid
E'en now my thoughts, relenting maid!
Thy temples 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, retir'd by day,
In dreams of passion melt away,
Allow'd with thee to dwell;
*A river in Sussex.
There waste the mournful lamp of night,
Till, Virgin! thou again delight
To hear a British shell.
THOU! to whom the world unknown
With all its shadowy shapes is shown;
Who seest appall'd th' unreal scene,
While Fancy lifts the veil between ;
Ah, Fear! ah, frantic Fear!
I see, I see thee near!
I know thy hurry'd 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 accurs'd the mind;
And those, the fiends who near ally'd,
O'er Nature's wounds and wrecks preside;
While Vengeance in the lurid air
Lifts her red arm, expos'd and bare;
On whom that rav'ning brood of Fate
Who lap the blood of Sorrow wait.
Who, Fear! this ghastly train can see
And look not madly wild like thee?
In earliest Greece to thee with partial choice
The grief-full Muse address'd her infant tongue;
The maids and matrons on her awful voice,
Silent and pale, in wild amazement hung.
Yet he, the bard* who first invok'd thy name,
Disdain'd in Marathon its power to feel;
For not alone he nurs'd 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 a while o'er Hybla's dews to rove,
With trembling eyes thy dreary steps to trace,
Where thou and Furies shar'd the baleful grove?
Wrapp'd 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 with'ring pow'r inspir'd each mournful line:
Tho' gentle Pity claim her mingled part,
Yet all the thunders of the scene are thine.
Thou who such weary lengths hast past,
Where wilt thou rest, mad Nymph! at last?
Say, wilt thou shroud in haunted cell,
Where gloomy Rape and Murder dwell?
Or in some hollow'd seat,
'Gainst which the big waves beat,
Hear drowning seamen's cries, in tempests brought? Dark Power! with shudd'ring meek submitted thought,
Be mine to read the visions old
Which thy awakʼning 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-aw'd
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.
ODE III. TO SIMPLICITY.
O THOU, by Nature taught To breathe her genuine thought
In numbers warmly pure and sweetly strong;
Who first on mountains wild,
In Fancy, loveliest child,
Thy babe, and Pleasure's, nurs'd the powers of song!
Thou! who with hermit heart
Disdain'd 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;
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