The thick-sprung reeds, which watery marshes yield,
Seem'd polish'd lances in a hostile field.
The stag, in limpid currents, with surprise,
Sees crystal branches on his forehead rise.
The spreading oak, the beech, and towering pine,
Glaz'd over, in the freezing ether shine.

The frighted birds the rattling branches shun,
Which wave and glitter in the distant sun.
When, if a sudden gust of wind arise,
The brittle forest into atoms flies,

The crackling wood beneath the tempest bends,
And in a spangled shower the prospect ends:
Or, if a southern gale the region warm,
And by degrees unbind the wintry charm,
The traveller a miry country sees,

And journeys sad beneath the dropping trees:
Like some deluded peasant, Merlin leads

Through fragrant bowers, and through delicious meads:

While here enchanted gardens to him rise,
And airy fabrics there attract his eyes,
His wandering feet the magic paths pursue,
And, while he thinks the fair illusion true,
The trackless scenes disperse in fluid air,
And woods, and wilds, and thorny ways appear.
A tedious road the weary wretch returns,
And, as he goes, the transient vision mourns.

A HYMN TO VENUS.

From the Greek of Sappho.

O VENUS, beauty of the skies,
To whom a thousand temples rise
Gaily false in gentle smiles,
Full of love-perplexing wiles,
O, goddess! from my heart remove
The wasting cares and pains of love.

If ever thou hast kindly heard
A song in soft distress preferr'd,
Propitious to my tuneful vow,
O, gentle goddess, hear me now.
Descend, thou bright immortal guest,
In all thy radiant charms confest.

Thou once didst leave almighty Jove,
And all the golden roofs above:
The car thy wanton sparrows drew;
Hovering in air they lightly flew;
As to my bower they wing'd their way,
I saw their quivering pinions play.

A FRAGMENT OF SAPPHO. BLEST as the immortal gods is he, The youth who fondly sits by thee, And hears and sees thee all the while Softly speak, and sweetly smile.

"Twas this deprived my soul of rest,
And rais'd such tumults in my breast;
For while I gaz'd, in transport tost,
My breath was gone, my voice was lost.

My bosom glow'd; the subtle flame
Ran quick through all my vital frame;
O'er my dim eyes a darkness hung,
My ears with hollow murmurs rung.

In dewy damps my limbs were chill'd,
My blood with gentle horrors thrill'd;
My feeble pulse forgot to play,
I fainted, sunk, and died away.

2S2

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!

ODE TO FEAR.

THOU, to whom the world unknown
With all its shadowy shapes is shown;
Who see'st 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 fixt 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 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 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.

* Eschylus.

Thou who such weary lengths hast past, 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 thought,

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'er-aw'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!

ODE.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1746. How sleep the brave, who sink to rest, By all their country's wishes blest! When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, Returns to deck their hallow'd mould, She there shall dress a sweeter sod, Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

By Fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
Their Honor comes, a pilgrim grey,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay,
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there!

† Jocasta.

!

ODE, TO A LADY,

ON THE DEATH OF COL. CHARLES ROSS, IN THE ACTION AT FONTEΝΟΥ.

Written May, 1745.

WHILE, lost to all his former mirth,
Britannia's genius bends to earth,

And mourns the fatal day:

While stain'd with blood he strives to tear Unseemly from his sea-green hair

The wreaths of cheerful May:

The thoughts which musing Pity pays,
And fond Remembrance loves to raise,
Your faithful hours attend:
Still Fancy, to herself unkind,
Awakes to grief the soften'd mind,
And points the bleeding friend.

By rapid Scheld's descending wave
His country's vows shall bless the grave,
Where'er the youth is laid:
That sacred spot the village hind
With every sweetest turf shall bind,

And Peace protect the shade.

O'er him, whose doom thy virtues grieve, Aerial forms shall sit at eve,

And bend the pensive head; And, fall'n to save his injur'd land, Imperial Honor's awful hand

Shall point his lonely bed!

The warlike dead of every age,
Who fill the fair recording page,
Shall leave their sainted rest:
And, half-reclining on his spear,
Each wondering chief by turns appear
To hail the blooming guest.

Old Edward's sons, unknown to yield,
Shall crowd from Cressy's laurel'd field,
And gaze with fix'd delight:
Again for Britain's wrongs they feel,
Again they snatch the gleamy steel,
And wish th' avenging fight.

But, lo! where, sunk in deep despair, Her garments torn, her bosom bare,

Impatient Freedom lies! Her matted tresses madly spread, To every sod which wraps the dead,

She turns her joyless eyes.

Ne'er shall she leave that lowly ground,
Till notes of triumph bursting round
Proclaim her reign restor'd:
Till William seek the sad retreat,
And, bleeding at her sacred feet,
Present the sated sword.

If, weak to soothe so soft an heart,
These pictur'd glories nought impart,
To dry thy constant tear :
If yet, in Sorrow's distant eye,
Expos'd and pale thou see'st him lie,
Wild war insulting near:

Where'er from time thou court'st relief,
The Muse shall still, with social grief
Her gentlest promise keep:
E'en humble Harting's cottag'd vale
Shall learn the sad repeated tale,
And bid her shepherds weep.

ODE TO EVENING.

IF aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song,
May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear.
Like thy own solemn springs,
Thy springs, and dying gales;

O nymph reserv'd, while now the bright-haird S
Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,
With brede ethereal wove,

O'erhang his wavy bed:

Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-ey'd
With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern w
Or where the beetle winds
His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum.
Now teach me, maid compos'd,
To breathe some soften'd strain,

Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening r
May not unseemly with its stillness suit,

As, musing slow, I hail
Thy genial lov'd return!

For when thy folding-star arising shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
The fragrant hours, and elves
Who slept in buds the day,

And many a nymph who wreathes her brows sedge,

And sheds the freshening dew, and lovelier still,
The pensive pleasures sweet
Prepare thy shadowy car.

Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene,
Or find some ruin 'midst its dreary dells,
Whose walls more awful nod
By thy religious gleams.

Or if chill blustering winds, or driving rain,
Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut
That from the mountain's side
Views wild and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discover'd spires,
And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all

Thy dewy fingers draw
The gradual dusky veil.

H

While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont
And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!
While Summer loves to sport
Beneath thy lingering light:

While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves,
Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air,
Affrights thy shrinking train,
And rudely rends thy robes:

WHO shall awake the Spartan fife,
And call in solemn so' nds to life,
The youths, whose locks divinely spreading,
Like vernal hyacinths in sullen hue,

At once the breath of fear and virtue shedding,
Applauding F endom lov'd of old to view?
What new Alens, fancy-blest,

Shall sing the sword, in myrtles drest, At Wisden's shrine awhile its flame concealing, (What place so fit to seal a deed renown'd?)

Till she her brightest lightnings round revealing, It 'eap'd in glory forth, and dealt her prompted wound!

O goddess, in that feeling hour,

When most its sounds would court thy ears,

Let not my shell's misguided power E'er draw thy sad, thy mindful tears. No, Freedom, no, I will not tell,

How Rome, before thy face,

With heaviest sound, a giant-statue, fell,
Push'd by a wild and artless race,
From off its wide ambitious base,

When Time his northern sons of spoil awoke,

And all the blended work of strength and grace
With many a rude repeated stroke,

And many a barbarous yell, to thousand fragments broke.

Or dwell in willow'd meads more near,
With those to whom the stork* is dear:
Those whom the rod of Alva bruis'd,
Whose crown a British queen refus'd!
The magic works, thou feel'st the strains,
One holier name alone remains;
The perfect spell shall then avail,
Hail, nymph, ador'd by Britain, hail!

ANTISTROPHE

Beyond the measure vast of thought,
The works, the wizard Time has wrought!
The Gaul, 'tis held of antique story,
Saw Britain link'd to his now adverse strand,t
No sea between, nor cliff sublime and hoary,
He pass'd with unwet feet through all our land.
To the blown Baltic then, they say,
The wild waves found another way,
Where Orcas howls, his wolfish mountains rounding;
Till all the banded west at once 'gan rise,
wide wild storm e'en Nature's self confounding,
Withering her giant sons with strange uncouth

A

surprise.

This pillar'd earth so firm and wide,
By winds and inward labors torn,

In thunders dread was push'd aside,

And down the shouldering billows borne

And see, like gems, her laughing train,
The little isles on every side,

Mona, once hid from those who search the main,
Where thousand elfin shapes abide,

And Wight, who checks the westering tide,

For thee consenting Heaven has each bestow'd, A fair attendant on her sovereign pride:

To thee this blest divorce she ow'd,

For thou hast made her vales thy lov'd, thy last abode!

EPODE.

Yet, e'en where'er the least appear'd,
Th' admiring world thy hand rever'd;
Still, midst the scatter'd states around,
Some remnants of her strength were found;
They saw, by what escap'd the storm,
How wondrous rose her perfect form;
How in the great, the labor'd whole,
Each mighty master pour'd his soul;

For sunny Florence, seat of Art,
Beneath her vines preserv'd a part,
Till they, whom Science lov'd to name,

(O, who could fear it!) quench'd her flame.
And, lo, an humbler relic laid

In jealous Pisa's olive shade!

See small Marino joins the theme,
Though least, not last in thy esteem;
Strike, louder strike th' ennobling strings

To those, whose merchants' sons were kings;
To him, who, deck'd with pearly pride,
In Adria weds his green-hair'd bride:
Hail, port of glory, wealth, and pleasure,
Ne'er let me change this Lydian measure:
Nor e'er her former pride relate
To sad Lig uria's bleeding state.
Ah, no! more pleas'd thy haunts I seek,
On wild Helvetia's mountains bleak:
(Where, when the favor'd of thy choice,
The daring archer heard thy voice;
Forth from his eyrie rous'd in dread,
The ravening eagle northward fled.)

SECOND EPODE.

Then too, 'tis said, an hoary pile, 'Midst the green navel of our isle,

*The Dutch, amongst whom there are very severe penalties for those who are convicted of killing this bird. They are kept tame in almost all their towns, and par ticularly at the Hague, of the arms of which they make a part. The common people of Holland are said to entertain a superstitious sentiment, that if the whole species of them should become extinct, they should lose their liberties.

†This tradition is mentioned by several of our old historians. Some naturalists, too, have endeavored to support the probability of the fact, by arguments drawn from the correspondent disposition of the two opposite coasts. I do not remember that any poetical use has been hitherto made of it.

There is a tradition in the Isle of Man, that a mermaid, becoming enamoured of a young man of extraordi nary beauty, took an opportunity of meeting him one day as he walked on the shore, and opened her passion to him, but was received with a coldness, occasioned by his horror and surprise at her appearance. This, however, was so misconstrued by the sea-lady, that, in revenge for his treatment of her, she punished the whole island, by covering it with a mist, so that all who at tempted to carry on any commerce with it, either never arrived at it, but wandered up and down the sea, or were on a sudden wrecked upon its cliffs.