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.'
|