Thou, the friend of man affign'd,
With balmy hands his wounds to bind, And charm his frantic woe:
When first Distress, with dagger keen,
Broke forth to waste his destin'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 fky-worn robes of tenderest blue,
And eyes of dewy light!
But wherefore need I wander wide
To old Iliffus' distant side,
Deserted fream, and mute?
Wild Arun† too has heard thy ftrains,
And Echo, 'midst thy native plains,
Been footh'd by Pity's lute.
There first the wren thy myrtles shed
On gentlest 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 maid,
Thy temple's pride defign:
Its fouthern fite, its truth compleat
Shall raise a wild enthusiast heat,
In all who view the shrine.
There Picture's toil fhall well relate,
How chance, or hard involving fate
O'er mortal bliss prevail :
The buskin'd Muse shall near her stand,
And fighing prompt her tender hand,
With each difastrous 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!
HOU, to whom the world unknown
Twith all its fhadowy fhapes is fhewn;
Who feeft appall'd th' unreal scene,
While Fancy lifts the veil between :
Ah Fear! ah frantic Fear!
I fee, I see thee near.
I know thy hurried ftep, thy haggard eye!
Like thee I start, like thee disorder'd fly;
For, lo what monfters 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 storm,
Or throws him on the ridgy steep
of fome loose hanging rock to fleep:
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 ghaftly train can fee,
And look not madly wild, like thee?
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 amufement 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 flanie,
But reach'd from Virtue's hand the patriot's fteel.
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 son 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 thy throbbing heart,
Thy withering power infpir'd each mournful line,
Tho' gentle Pity claim her mingled part,
Yet all the thunders of the scene are thine!
Thou who fuch weary lengths has past,
Where wilt thou reft, mad Nymph, at last?
Say, wilt thou fhroud in haunted cell,
Where gloomy Rape and Murder dwell?
Or in fome hollow'd feat,
'Gainst which the big waves beat,
Hear drowning feamens cries in tempests brought!
Dark power, with fhuddering meek fubmitted thought,
Be mine, to read the vifions old,
Which thy awakening bards have told:
And, left 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 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 whofe fpirit most poffeft
The facred feat of Shakespear'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!
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