Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

ODE TO FEA R.

Hou, to whom the world unknown

TH

With all its fhadowy fhapes 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 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 ftorm,
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

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 see,
And look not madly wild, like thee?

EPODE.

In earliest Greece, to thee, with partial choice,
The grief-full Muse 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,

[ocr errors]

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.

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 fhar'd the baleful grove?

* Eschylus.

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 line, Tho' gentle Pity claim her mingled part,

Yet all the thunders of the scene are thine!

ANTIST ROPHE.

Thou who fuch weary lengths hast past,
Where wilt thou reft, mad Nymph, at laft?

Say, wilt thou fhroud 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 fubmitted

Be mine, to read the vifions old,

Which thy awakening bards have told:

[thought,

* Jocafta.

And,

And, left thou meet my blafted 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 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 whose spirit most possest
The facred feat of Shakespear'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

ODE TO SIMPLICITY.

O

Thou by Nature taught,

To breathe her genuine thought,

In numbers warmly pure, and fweetly strong :

Who first on mountains wild,

In Fancy, lovelieft child,

Thy babe, and Pleasure'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 chaste, unboaftful nymph, to thee I call!

By all the honey'd store

On Hybla's thymy shore,

By all her blooms, and mingled murmurs dear,

By her, whose love-lorn woe,

In evening mufings flow,

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

By

« AnteriorContinuar »