Till all my soul, each tumult charm'd away, By thee inspired, O Virtue, Age is young, Love, Wonder, Joy, alternately alarm, And Beauty dazzles with angelic charin. Ah whither fled!- -ye dear illusions stay Lo, pale and silent lies the lovely clay.— Which late the purple light of youth display'd! All cold the hand, that sooth'd Wo's weary head! And quench'd the eye, the pitying tear that shed! And mute the voice, whose pleasing accents stole, Infusing balm, into the rankled soul! O Death, why arm with cruelty thy power, Is Virtue then no more the care of Heaven! But peace, bold thought! be still my bursting heart! We, not ELIZA, felt the fatal dart. Scaped the dark dungeon does the slave complain, And wings the soul with boundless flight to soar, Where dangers threat, and fears alarm no more. Transporting thought! here let me wipe away The tear of grief, and wake a bolder lay. Lo, where in speechless, hopeless anguish, bend Mix'd with yon drooping Mourners, on her bier In silence shed the sympathetic tear. ODE TO HOPE. I. 1. O THOU, who glad'st the pensive soul, Where desolation frowns, and tempests howl; And cross the gloom darts many a shapeless form, O come, and be once more my guest. Come, for thou oft thy suppliant's vow hast heard, And oft with smiles indulgent chear'd And soothed him into rest. I. 2. Smit by thy rapture-beaming eye Deep flashing through the midnight of their mind, The sable bands combined, Where Fear's black banner bloats the troubled sky, G Appall'd retire. Suspicion hides her head, With speed unwonted Indolence upsprings, And sullen glides away : I. 3. Ten thousand forms, by pining Fancy view'd, Dissolve. Above the sparkling flood When Phoebus rears his awful brow, From lengthening lawn and valley low The troops of fen-born mists retire. The joyous swain Eyes the gay villages again, And gold-illumined spire; While on the billowy ether borne Her green robes glittering to the morn, |