O DE S,

DESCRIPTIVE AND ALLEGORICAL.

ODE TO PITY.

Thou, the friend of man affign'd,
With balmy hands his wounds to bind,
And charm his frantic woe:

When first Distress, with dagger keen,
Broke forth to wafte his deftin'd scene,
His wild unfated foe!

By Pella's Bard, a magic name,

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

Long, Pity, let the nations view

Thy fky-worn robes of tenderest blue,
And eyes of dewy light!

But wherefore need I wander wide
To old Iliffus' diftant fide,

Deserted stream, and mute?

Wild Arun too has heard thy ftrains,

And Echo, 'midft my native plains,

Been footh'd by Pity's lute.

A river in Suffex.

There

There first the wren thy myrtles fhed
On gentleft Otway's infant head,
To him thy cell was fhewn;

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

Come, Pity, come, by fancy's aid,
Ev'n now my thoughts, relenting maid,
Thy temple's pride defign:

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

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

The buskin'd Mufe fhall near her stand,
And fighing prompt her tender hand,
With each disastrous tale.

There let me oft, retir'd by day,
In dreams of paffion 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!

ODE

ODE то

FEAR.

HOU, to whom the world unknown

THOU

With all its fhadowy fhapes is fhewn;

Who feest appall'd th' unreal scene,

While Fancy lifts the veil between:

Ah, Fear! ah, frantic Fear!

I fee, I fee thee near.

I know thy hurried step, thy haggard eye!
Like thee I start, like thee disorder'd fly,
For, lo, what monfters in thy train appear!
Danger, whofe limbs of giant mold
What mortal eye can fix'd behold?
Who ftalks his round, an hideous form,
Howling amidst the midnight storm,
Or throws him on the ridgy steep
Of fome loose hanging rock to fleep:
And with him thousand phantoms join'd,
Who prompt to deeds accurs'd the mind:
And thofe, the fiends, who near allied,
O'er nature's wounds and wrecks prefide;
While Vengeance, in the lurid air,
Lifts her red arm, expos'd and bare:
On whom that ravening brood of fate,
Who lap the blood of Sorrow, wait;
Who, Fear, this ghaftly train can fee,
And look not madly wild, like thee?

VOL. LVIII.

C

EPODE.

EPODE.

In earliest Greece, to thee, with partial choice,
The grief-full Muse addrest her infant tongue;
The maids and matrons, on her aweful voice,
Silent and pale, in wild amazement hung.

Yet he, the Bard * who first invok'd thy name,
Difdain'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 fteps to trace,
Where thou and furies fhar'd the baleful grove?
Wrapt in thy cloudy veil th' incestuous Queen †
Sigh'd the fad call her fon and husband heard,
When once alone it broke the filent scene,

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

ANTISTROPHE.

Thou who fuch weary lengths hast past, Where wilt thou reft, mad nymph, at last? Say, wilt thou shroud in haunted cell, Where gloomy Rape and Murder dwell?

* Æschylus:

Jocafta.

Or

Or in fome hollow'd feat,

'Gainft which the big waves beat,

Hear drowning feamen's cries in tempefts brought! Dark power, with fhuddering meek submitted thought, Be mine, to read the vifions old,

Which thy awakening bards have told.

And, left thou meet my blasted view,
Hold each ftrange 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 moft poffeft
The facred feat of Shakespeare'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 TO SIMPLICITY.

Thou, by Nature taught,

To breathe her genuine thought,

In numbers warmly pure, and fweetly strong:

Who first on mountains wild,

In Fancy, loveliest child,

Thy babe, and Pleasure's, nurs'd the powers of fong!