AGIB.

'Weak as thou art, yet hapless, must thou know
The toils of flight, or some severer woe!
Still as I haste, the Tartar shouts behind;
And shrieks and sorrows load the saddening wind:
In rage of heart, with ruin in his hand,

He blasts our harvests, and deforms our land.
Yon citron grove, whence first in fear we came,
Droops its fair honours to the conquering flame :
Far fly the swains, like us, in deep despair,
And leave to ruffian bands their fleecy care.'

SECANDER.

'Unhappy land, whose blessings tempt the sword, In vain, unheard, thou call'st thy Persian lord! In vain thou court'st him, helpless, to thine aid, To shield the shepherd, and protect the maid! Far off, in thoughtless indolence resign'd,

Soft dreams of love and pleasure soothe his mind: Midst fair sultanas lost in idle joy,

No wars alarm him, and no fears annoy.'

AGIB.

'Yet these green hills, in summer's sultry heat, Have lent the monarch oft a cool retreat. Sweet to the sight is Zabran's flowery plain: And once by maids and shepherds lov'd in vain! No more the virgins shall delight to rove By Sargis' banks, or Irwan's shady grove; On Tarkie's mountain catch the cooling gale, Or breathe the sweets of Aly's flowery vale: Fair scenes! but, ah! no more with peace possess'd, With ease alluring, and with plenty bless'd!

No more the shepherds whitening tents appear,
Nor the kind products of a bounteous year;
No more the date, with snowy blossoms crown'd!
But ruin spreads her baleful fires around.'

6

SECANDER.

In vain Circassia boasts her spicy groves, For ever fam'd, for pure and happy loves: In vain she boasts her fairest of the fair, Their eyes blue languish, and their golden hair! Those eyes in tears their fruitless grief must send; Those hairs the Tartar's cruel hand shall rend.'

AGIB.

'Ye Georgian swains, that piteous learn from far Circassia's ruin, and the waste of war;

Some weightier arms than crooks and staffs prepare,
To shield your harvest, and defend your fair :
The Turk and Tartar like designs pursue,

Fix'd to destroy, and stedfast to undo.
Wild as his land, in native deserts bred,

By lust incited, or by malice led,

The villain Arab, as he prowls for prey,

Oft marks with blood and wasting flames the way: Yet none so cruel as the Tartar foe,

To death inur'd, and nurs'd in scenes of woe.'

He said: when loud along the vale was heard A shriller shriek; and nearer fires appear'd: The'affrighted shepherds,through the dews of night, Wide o'er the moonlight-hills renew'd their flight.

ODES.

TO PITY.

O 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 destin'd scene,
His wild unsated foe!

By Pella's* bard, 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!

But wherefore need I wander wide
To old Ilissus' 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,

* Euripides.

+ The river Arun runs by the village in Sussex, where Otway

had his birth.

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.

Come, Pity, come; by Fancy's aid,
E'en 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,
Allow'd with thee to dwell:

There waste the mournful lamp of night,
Till, Virgin, thou again delight

To hear a British shell!

TO FEAR.

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 mould
What mortal eye can fix'd behold?
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 accurs'd 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, 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 address'd 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,
Disdain'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.

Alluding to the Kuvas aqunT8s of Sophocles. See the

Electra.

+ Eschylus.