Who stalks his round, an 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;
Whilst Vengeance, in the lurid air,
Lifts her red arm, exposed 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 addressed her infant tongue; The maids and matrons, on her awful voice, Silent and pale, in wild amazement hung.

Yet he, the bard' who first invoked thy name,
Disdain'd in Marathon its power to feel;
For not alone he nursed the poet's flame,
Butreach'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 steps to trace,
Where thou and furies shared the baleful grove?

1 Alluding to the Kuvas apuntes of Sophocles. See the Electra.

2 Eschylus.

Wrapp'd in thy cloudy veil, the' incestuous queen 3 Sigh'd the sad call her son and husband heard, When once alone it broke the silent scene,

And he the wretch of Thebes no more appear'd.

O Fear, I know thee by my throbbing heart:
Thy withering power inspired each mournful line:
Though gentle Pity claim her mingled part,
Yet all the thunders of the scene are thine!

ANTISTROPHE,

Thou who such weary lengths hast pass'd,
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 seat

'Gainst which the big waves beat,

Hear drowning seamen's cries, in tempests brought?
Dark power! with shuddering meek submitted
Be mine, to read the visions old

Which thy awakening bards have told:
And, lest thou meet my blasted view,
Hold each strange tale devoutly true.
Ne'er be I found, by thee o'erawed,
In that thrice-hallow'd eve, abroad,
When ghosts, 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 possess'd
The sacred seat of Shakspeare's breast!
By all that from thy prophet broke,
In thy divine emotions spoke;

3 Jocasta.

[thought,

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!

TO SIMPLICITY.

O THOU, by Nature taught
To breathe her genuine thought,

In numbers warmly pure, and sweetly strong;
Who first, on mountains wild,

In Fancy, loveliest child,

Thy babe, or Pleasure's, nursed the powers of song!

Thou, who, with hermit heart,

Disdain'st the wealth of art,

And gauds, and pageant weeds, and trailing pall; But comest a decent maid,

In attic robe array'd,

O chaste, unboastful nymph, to thee I call!

By all the honied store

On Hybla's thymy shore;

By all her blooms, and mingled murmurs dear; By her' whose love-lorn woe,

In evening musings slow,

Soothed, sweetly sad, Electra's poet's ear:

By old Cephisus deep,

Who spread his wavy sweep

In warbled wanderings, round thy green retreat: On whose enamel'd side

When holy Freedom died,

No equal haunt allured thy future feet.

1 The andwv, or nightingale, for which Sophocles seems to have entertained a peculiar fondness.

O sister meek of Truth

To my admiring youth

Thy sober aid and native charms infuse !
The flowers that sweetest breathe,

Though 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 loved her hills, and led her laureat band: But staid to sing alone

To one distinguish'd throne;

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

No more in hall or bower,

The Passions own thy power!

Love, only Love, her forceless numbers mean : For thou hast left her shrine;

Nor olive more, nor vine,

Shall gain thy feet to bless the servile scene.

Though taste, though genius, bless

To some divine excess,

Faint's the cold work till thou inspire the whole; What each, what all supply,

May court, may charm, our eye;

Thou, only thou, canst raise the meeting soul!

Of these let others ask,

To aid some mighty task,

I only seek to find thy temperate vale;
Where oft my reed might sound

To maids and shepherds round,

And all thy sons, O Nature, learn my tale.

ON THE POETICAL CHARACTER.

As once,-if, not with light regard,
I read aright that gifted bard,

-Him whose school above the rest
His loveliest Elfin Queen has bless'd;-
One, only one, unrival'd' fair,
Might hope the magic girdle wear,
At solemn tournay hung on high,
The wish of each love-darting eye;

-Lo! to each other nymph, in turn, applied,
As if, in air unseen, some hovering hand,
Some chaste and angel-friend to virgin-fame,
With whisper'd spell had burst the starting band,
It left unbless'd her loathed dishonour'd side;
Happier, hopeless fair, if never

Her baffled hand, with vain endeavour,
Had touch'd that fatal zone to her denied!

Young Fancy thus, to me divinest name!
To whom, prepared and bathed in Heaven,
The cest of amplest power is given ;
To few the godlike gift assigns,

To gird their bless'd prophetic loins,

[flame!

And gaze her visions wild, and feel unmix'd her

The band, as fairy legends say,

Was wove on that creating day

When He, who call'd with thought to birth
Yon tented sky, this laughing earth,

And dress'd with springs and forests tall,

And pour'd the main engirting all,

1 Florimel. See Spenser, Leg. 4th.