O praise him, 'till ye take your way
To regions of eternal day,

And reign for ever there.

XXVIII.

Let us, who now impaffive stand,
Aw'd by the tyrant's stern command,
Amid the fiery blaze;

While thus we triumph in the flame,

Rife, and our Maker's love proclaim,
In hymns of endless praise.

An ODE to FANCY.

By the Same.

ANCY, whose delufions vain

FA

Sport themselves with human brain;

Rival thou of Nature's pow'r,

Can'ft, from thy exhaustless store,

Bid a tide of forrow flow,

And whelm the foul in deepest woe:

Or in the twinkling of an eye,

Raife it to mirth and jollity.

etetet

Dreams

Dreams and shadows by thee ftand,

Taught to run at thy command,

And along the wanton air,
Flit like empty Goffimer.
Thee, black Melancholy of yore
To the swift-wing'd Hermes bore:
From the mixture of thy line,
Different natures in thee join,
Which thou chuseft to express
By the variance of thy drefs.
Now like thy fire thou lov'st to seem
Light and gay with pinions trim,
Dipt in all the dyes that glow
In the bend of Iris' bow:

Now like thy mother drear and fad,

(All in mournful vestments clad, Cypress weeds and fable stole,)

Thou rushest on th' affrighted soul.

Oft I feel thee coming on,

When the night hath reach'd her noon,
And darkness, partner of her reign,
Round the world hath bound her chain,
Then with measur'd step and flow,
In the church-yard path I go,

And

And while my outward fenfes fleep,
Loft in contemplation deep,

Sudden I stop, and turn my ear,

And lift'ning hear, or think I hear.
First a dead and fullen found

Walks along the holy ground;

Then through the gloom alternate break
Groans, and the fhrill fcreech-owl's fhriek.
Lo! the moon hath hid her head,
And the graves give up their dead:
By me pass the ghaftly crowds,
Wrapt in visionary shrouds ;

Maids, who died with love forlorn,

Youths, who fell by maidens' scorn,

Helpless fires, and matrons old

Slain for fordid thirst of gold,

And babes, who owe their fhorten'd date

To cruel step-dames ruthless hate;

Each their fev'ral errands

go,

To haunt the wretch that wrought their woe:

From their fight the caitiff flies,

And his heart within him dies;

While a horror damp and chill
Through his frozen blood doth thrill,

And

Bears itself upon his head.

When the early breath of day

Hath made the fhadows flee away;

Still poffefs'd by thee I rove

Bofom'd in the fhelt'ring grove,

There, with heart and lyre new ftrung,

Meditate the lofty song.

And if thou my voice infpire,
And with wonted frenzy fire,
Aided by thee I build the rhyme
Such, as nor the flight of time,
Nor wafting flame, nor eating show'r,
Nor light'ning's blast can e'er devour.
Or if chance fome moral page
My attentive thoughts engage,
On I walk, with filent tread,
Under the thick-woven fhade,
While the thrush, unheeded by,
Tunes her artless minstrelsy.
Lift'ning to their facred lore,

I think on ages long paft o'er,

When Truth and Virtue hand in hand

Walk'd upon the smiling land.

Thence

Thence my eyes on Britain glance,
And, awaken'd from my trance,
While my busy thoughts I rear,
Oft I wipe the falling tear.
When the night again defcends
And her shadowy cone extends,
O'er the fields I walk alone,
By the filence of the moon.
Hark! upon my left I hear
Wild music wand'ring in the air;

Led by the found I onward creep,'

And through the neighb'ring hedge I peep;

There I fpy the Fairy band
Dancing on the level land,

Now with step alternate bound,
Join'd in one continu'd round,
Now their plighted hands unbind,
And fuch tangled mazes wind

As the quick eye can scarce purfue,

And would have puzzled that fam'd clue,

Which led th' Athenian's unfkill'd feet

Through the Labyrinth of Crete.
At the near approach of day,

Sudden the mufic dies away,

Wafting