ODES, DESCRIPTIVE AND ALLEGORICAL.
10 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 foe!
2 By Pella's Bard,1 a magic name,
By all the griefs his thought could frame, Receive my humble rite:
Long, Pity, let the nations view Thy sky-worn robes of tenderest blue, And eyes of dewy light!
3 But wherefore need I wander wide
To old Ilissus' distant side,
Deserted stream, and mute?
Wild Arun 2 too has heard thy strains, And Echo, 'midst my native plains,
Been soothed by Pity's lute.
Pella's Bard:' Euripides.- Arun :' a river in Sussex, near the birth
4 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.
5 Come, Pity, come, by Fancy's aid, Even 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.
6 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.
7 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!
ODES, DESCRIPTIVE AND ALLEGORICAL.
1 0 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 foe!
2 By Pella's Bard,1 a magic name,
By all the griefs his thought could frame,
Receive my humble rite:
Long, Pity, let the nations view Thy sky-worn robes of tenderest blue, And eyes of dewy light!
3 But wherefore need I wander wide
To old Ilissus' distant side,
Deserted stream, and mute?
Wild Arun 2 too has heard thy strains, And Echo, 'midst my native plains,
Been soothed by Pity's lute.
Pella's Bard:' Euripides.-2 Arun: a river in Sussex, near the
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 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, a 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 brood1 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.
1 'That ravening brood:' the Furies of Sophocles. See Electra.'
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