Who prompt to deeds accursed the mind:
And those, the fiends, who near allied,
O'er nature's wounds, and wrecks, preside;
Whilst 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 not look madly wild, like thee?

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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 bard who first invoked thy name,
Disdained in Marathon its power to feel:

For not alone he nursed the poet's flame,
But reached from virtue's hand the patriot's steel.

But who is he whom later garlands grace,

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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?

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Wrapt in thy cloudy veil, the incestuous queen

Sighed the last call her son and husband heard,

40 When once alone it broke the silent scene, And he, the wretch of Thebes, no more appeared.

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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!

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ANTISTROPHE

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 hollowed 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

55 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'erawed,
In that thrice hallowed eve abroad,
60 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 Shakespeare's breast! 65
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 cyprus wreath my meed decree,
And I, O fear, will dwell with thee!

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ODE

WRITTEN IN 1746

How sleep the brave who sink to rest,
By all their country's wishes blessed!
When spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There honour comes, a pilgrim grey,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell, a weeping hermit, there!

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ΤΟ

5

ΙΟ

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ODE 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, or pleasure's, nursed the power 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 arrayed,

O chaste, unboastful nymph, to thee I call;

By all the honeyed store

On Hybla's thymy shore;

By all her blooms, and mingled murmurs dear;
By her whose lovelorn 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 enamelled 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 culled the wreath,

Still ask thy hand to range their ordered hues.

While Rome could none esteem

But virtue's patriot theme,

You loved her hills, and led her laureat band:
But stayed to sing alone

To one distinguished throne;

And turned thy face, and fled her altered land.

No more, in hall or bower,

The passions own thy power;

Love, only love, her forceless numbers mean:

For thou hast left her shrine;

Nor olive more, nor vine,

Shall gain thy feet to bless the servile scene.

Though taste, though genius, bless

To some divine excess,

Faints the cold work till thou inspire the whole;

What each, what all supply,

May court, may charm, our eye;

Thou, only thou, canst raise the meeting soul!

Of these let others ask,

To aid some mighty task,

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