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 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?

* fchylus,

Wrapt

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 Tho' gentle Pity claim her mingled part, [line, Yet all the thunders of the fcene are thine!

ANTISTROPHE.

Thou who fuch weary lengths haft past,
Where wilt thou reft, mad Nymph, at last?
Say, wilt thou shroud in haunted cell,

Where gloomy Rape and Murder dwell?
Or in fome hollow'd feat,

'Gainft which the big waves beat,

Hear drowning feamens cries in tempefts brought!

Dark power, with fhuddering meek submitted

Be mine, to read the vifions old,

[thought,

Which thy awakening bards have told.

* Jocafta.

And,

And, left thou meet my blafted 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 ghofts, 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 whofe fpirit moft poffeft

The facred feat of breaft!!

The facred feat of Shakespear's breast!

By all that from thy prophet broke,
In thy divine emotions fpoke!
Hither again thy fury deal,

Teach me but once like him to feel:
His cyprefs 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 firft on mountains wild,

In Fancy, lovelieft child,

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

Thou, who with hermit heart

Difdain'ft the wealth of art,

And gauds, and pageant weeds, and trailing pall:

But com'ft a decent maid,

In Attic robe array'd,

O chafte, unboaftful nymph, to thee I call!

By all the honey'd ftore

On Hybla's thymy shore,

By all her blooms, and mingled murmurs dear,

By her, whofe love-lorn woe,

In evening mufings flow,

Sooth'd fweetly fad Electra's poet's ear:

By

By old Cephifus deep,

Who fpread his wavy sweep

In warbled wanderings round thy green retreat,

On whose enamel'd fide,

When holy Freedom died,

No equal haunt allur'd thy future feet.

O fifter meek of Truth,

To my admiring youth,

Thy fober aid and native charms infufe!

The flowers that sweetest breathe,

Tho' beauty cull'd the wreath,

Still ask thy hand to range their order'd hues.

While Rome could none esteem,

But virtue's patriot theme,

You lov'd her hills, and led her laureate band;

But ftaid to fing alone

To one diftinguifh'd throne,

And turn'd thy face, and fled her alter'd land.