Who lap the blood of sorrow, wait: 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. Yet he, the bard who first invoked thy name, But who is he whom later garlands grace, Who left awhile o'er Hybla's dews to rove, With trembling eyes thy dreary steps to trace, Where thou and furies shared the baleful grove? Wrapt in thy cloudy veil, the incestuous queen Sighed the sad call her son and husband heard, When once alone it broke the silent scene, And he the wretch of Thebes no more appeared. O Fear, I know thee by my throbbing heart: Thy withering power inspired 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, '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 : Ne'er be I found, by thee o'erawed, O thou, whose spirit most possest Teach me but once like him to feel: ODE TO LIBERTY. STROPHE. HO shall awake the Spartan fife, The youths, whose locks divinely spreading, Like vernal hyacinths in sullen hue, At once the breath of fear and virtue shedding, Applauding Freedom loved of old to view? What new Alcæus, fancy-blest, Shall sing the sword, in myrtles drest, At Wisdom's shrine awhile its flame concealing, (What place so fit to seal a deed renowned ?) Till she her brightest lightnings round re vealing, It leaped in glory forth, and dealt her prompted wound! O goddess, in that feeling hour, E'er draw thy sad, thy mindful tears. No, Freedom, no, I will not tell How Rome, before thy weeping face, When Time his northern sons of spoil awoke, grace, With many a rude repeated stroke, And many a barbarous yell, to thousand fragments broke. EPODE. Yet, even where'er the least appeared, In jealous Pisa's olive shade! See small Marino joins the theme, |