But wherefore need I wander wide To old lissus' distant side, Deserted stream and mute? Wild Arun* too has heard thy strains, And Echo, 'midst my native plains, Been sooth'd by Pity's lute. 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. *A river in Sussex. Come, Pity! come; by Fancy's aid, Ev'n 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. 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. There let me oft, retir'd by day, In dreams of passion melt away. ODE TO FE A R. 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 see, I see thee near. 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 mold What mortal eye can fix'd behold? Who stalks his round, an hideous form, Howling amidst the midnight storm; D 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 accurs'd 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, expos'd and bare : On whom that ravening brood of Fate, Who lap the blood of Sorrow, wait; Who, Fear, this ghastly train can see, And look not madly wild, like thee? EPODE. In earliest Greece, to thee, with partial choice, The grief-full Muse addrest her infant tongue; The maids and matrons, on her awful voice, Silent and pale, in wild amazement hung. |