O stay thee, Agib, for my feet deny,
No longer friendly to my life, to fly.
Friend of my heart, O turn thee and survey,
Trace our fad flight thro' all its length of way!
And first review that long-extended plain!
And yon wide groves, already paft, with pain !
Yon ragged cliff, whose dangerous path we try'd !
And last this lofty mountain's weary side !

Асів.

Weak as thou art, yet hapless must thou know
The toils of fight, or some feverer woe!
Still as I hafte, the Tartar shouts behind,
And shrieks and sorrows load the faddening wind:
In rage of heart, with ruin in his hand,
He blafts our harvests and deforms our land.
Yon citron grove, whence first in fear we came,
Droops its fair honours to the conquering flame:
Far fly the fwains, like us, in deep despair,
And leave to ruffian bands their fleecy care.

SECANDER.

Unhappy land, whose bleffings tempt the sword,
In vain, unheard, thou call'st thy Persian lord !
In vain thou court't him, helpless, to thine aid,
To fhield the shepherd, and protect the maid!

Far off, in thoughtless indolence refign'd,

Soft dreams of love and pleasure footh his mind; 'Midft fair fultanas loft in idle joy,

No wars alarm him, and no fears annoy.

AGIB.

Yet these green hills, in fummer's fultry heat, Have lent the monarch oft a cool retreat. Sweet to the fight is Zabran's flowery plain, And once by maids and fhepherds lov'd in vain! No more the virgin fhall delight to rove By Sargis' banks, or Irwan's fhady grove; On Tarkie's mountain catch the cooling gale, Or breathe the fweets of Aly's flowery vale: Fair scenes! but, ah; no more with peace poffeft, With eafe alluring, and with plenty bleft. No more the shepherd's whitening tents appear, Nor the kind products of a bounteous year; No more the date, with fnowy bloffoms crown'd! But ruin fpreads her baleful fires around.

SECANDER.

In vain Circaffia boafts her spicy groves, For ever fam'd for pure and happy loves: In vain the boafts her fairest of the fair, Their eye's blue languish, and their golden hair! Thofe eyes in tears their fruitless grief must send Those hairs the Tartar's cruel hand fhall rend.

;

AGIB.

Ye Georgian fwains that piteous learn from far
Circaffia's ruin, and the wafte of war;

Some weightier arms than crooks and staffs prepare,
To shield your harvests, and defend your fair :
The Turk and Tartar like defigns pursue,
Fix'd to destroy, and ftedfast to undo.

Wild as his land, in native deserts bred,
By luft incited, or by malice led,

The villain Arab, as he prowls for prey,

Oft marks with blood and wafting flames the way;
Yet none fo cruel as the Tartar foe,

To death enur'd, and nurs'd in fcenes of woe.

He faid; when loud along the vale was heard
A fhriller fhriek, and nearer fires appear'd:
Th' affrighted fhepherds thro' the dews of night,
Wide o'er the moon-light hills renew'd their flight.

AN ODE то

FEAR.

BY THE SAME.

HOU, to whom the world unknown
With all its fhadowy shapes is fhewn ;
Who feeft 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 ftep, thy haggard eye!
Like thee I start, like thee diforder'd fly,

For, lo what monsters in thy train appear!
Danger, whofe limbs of giant mold
What mortal eye can fix'd behold?
Who talks his round, an hideous form,
Howling amidst the midnight ftorm,
Or throws him on the ridgy steep
Of fome loofe hanging rock to fleep:
And with him thousand phantoms join'd,
Who prompt to deeds accurs'd the mind:
And those, 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?

EPODE.

In earliest Greece, to thee, with partial choice,
The grief-full Mufe addreft her infant tongue;
The maids and matrons, on her awful voice

Silent and pale in wild amazement hung.

Yet he, the Bard* who firft 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 fteel.

* Æfchylus.

But

a

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 ? Wrapt in thy cloudy veil th' inceftuous Queen *

Sigh’d, the fad call her son 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 inspir'd each mournful line, Tho' gentle Pity claim her mingled part,

Yet all the thunders of the scene are thine!

ANTISTROPHE. Thou who fuch weary lengths haft 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 feat, 'Gainst which the big waves beat, Hear drowning feamen'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, left 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,