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Deserted stream, and mute?

Wild Arun too has heard thy strains,
And Echo, midst thy native plains,
Been sooth'd by Pity's lute.

There first the wren in myrtles shed
On gentlest Otway's infant head,
To him thy cell was shewn ;
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 toils 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 aft, 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!

The river Arun runs by the village in Sussex, where Otway had his birth.

ODE TO FEAR.

THOU, to whom the world unknown,
With all its shadowy shapes, is shewn;
Who seest, appall'd, the unreal scene,
While Fancy lifts the veil between:
Ah Fear! al 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 addrest her infant tongue; The maids and matrons, on her awful voice, Silent and pale, in wild amazement hung.

* Alluding to the Kuvar aquara; of Sophocles. See the Electra.

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.

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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 shar'd the baleful grove?

Wrapt in thy cloudy veil, th' incestuous + queen 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 inspir'd 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 past,
Where wilt thou rest, ad 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 shudd'ring meek submitted thought.

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ορώρει βοη

Ην μεν Σιωπη; φθεγμα δ' εξαίφνης τινος
Θωυξεν αυτον, ωστε πανίας όρθιας

• Στησαι φόβω δεισανίας εξαιφνης Τρίχας.

See the Edip. Colon. of Sophocles.

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'eraw'd,
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 possest
The sacred seat of Shakspeare'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!

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ODE 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, nurs'd the powers of song!

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Thou, who, with hermit heart,
Disdain'st the wealth of art,

And gauds, and pageant weeds, and training pall;

But com'st a decent maid,

In attic robe array'd,

O chaste, unboastful 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 musings slow,

Sooth'd 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 enamell'd side,

When holy Freedom died,

No equal haunt allur'd thy future feet.

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 lov'd 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 bow'r,

The Passions own thy power;

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

Nor olive more, nor vine,

Shall gam thy feet to bless the servile scene.

*The andwy, or nightingale, for which Sophocles

eems to have entertained a peculiar fondness.

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