DESCRIPTIVE AND ALLEGORICAL.
Thou, the friend of man affign'd,
With balmy hands his wounds to bind,
And charm his frantic woe :
When first Diftrefs, with dagger keen,
Broke forth to waste his deftin'd scene,
His wild unfated 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 Iliffus' diftant fide,
Deserted ftream, and mute?
Wild *Arun too has heard thy ftrains,
And Echo, 'midft my native plains,
Been footh'd by Pity's lute.
There first the wren thy myrtles shed
On gentleft Otway's infant head,
To him thy cell was fhewn;
And while he fung the female heart,
With youth's foft notes unspoil❜d by art,
Thy turtles mix'd their own.
Come, Pity, come, by fancy's aid,
Ev'n now my thoughts, relenting naid,
Thy temple's pride defign:
Its fouthern fite, its truth complete
Shall raife a wild enthusiast heat,
In all who view the fhrine.
There Picture's toil fhall well relate,
How chance, or hard involving fate,
O'er mortal blifs prevail :
The bufkin'd Mufe fhall near her ftand,
And fighing prompt her tender hand,
With each difaftrous tale.
There let me oft, retir'd by day,
In dreams of paffion 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!
THOU, to whom the world unknown
With all its shadowy shapes is fhewn ;
Who feeft appall'd th' unreal fcene,
While Fancy lifts the veil between :
Ah, Fear! ah, frantic Fear!
I know thy hurried ftep, thy haggard eye!
Like thee I start, like thee diforder'd fly,
For, lo, what monsters in thy train appear!
Danger, whofe limbs of giant mold
What mortal eye can fix'd behold?
Who ftalks his round, an hideous form,
Howling amidst the midnight ftorm,
Or throws him on the ridgy fteep
Of fome loose hanging rock to sleep:
And with him thousand phantoms join'd,
Who prompt to deeds accurs'd the mind:
And thofe, the fiends, who near allied,
O'er nature's wounds and wrecks prefide;
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 ghaftly train can fee,
And look not madly wild, like thee ?
In earliest Greece, to thee, with partial choice,
The grief-full Muse addreft her infant tongue;
The maids and matrons, on her aweful voice,
Silent and pale, in wild amazement hung.
Yet he, the Bard* who first invok'd thy name,
Difdain'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.
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 fhar'd the baleful grove?
Wrapt in thy cloudy veil th' incestuous Queen †
Sigh'd the fad call her fon and husband heard,
When once alone it broke the filent scene,
And he the wretch of Thebes no more appear'd. O Fear, I know thee by my throbbing heart, Thy withering power infpir'd each mournful line, Though gentle Pity claim her mingled part, Yet all the thunders of the fcene are thine.
Thou who fuch weary lengths haft past, Where wilt thou reft, mad nymph, at last? Say, wilt thou shroud in haunted cell, Where gloomy Rape and Murder dwell?
Or in fome hollow'd feat,
'Gainft which the big waves beat,
Hear drowning feamen's cries in tempefts brought!
Dark power, with fhuddering meek fubmitted thought,
Be mine, to read the visions old,
Which thy awakening bards have told.
And, left thou meet my blafted view,
Hold each ftrange tale devoutly true;
Ne'er be I found, by thee o'er-aw'd,
In that thrice-hallow'd eve abroad,
When ghofts, 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 facred feat of Shakespeare's breft!
By all that from thy prophet broke,
In thy divine emotions fpoke!
Hither again thy fury deal,
Teach me but once like him to feel:
His cyprefs wreath my meed decree,
And I, O Fear, will dwell with thee!
Thou, by Nature taught,
To breathe her genuine thought,
In numbers warmly pure, and sweetly strong :
Who firft on mountains wild,
In Fancy, loveliest child,
Thy babe, and Pleasure's, nurs'd the powers of fong!
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