Puslapio vaizdai
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144

STUDIES IN POETRY.

Who seeks secure to rule, be first her care
Each softer virtue that adorns the fair;
Each tender passion man delights to find;
The lov'd perfections of a female mind!

"Bless'd were the days when Wisdom held her reig
And shepherds sought her on the silent plain;
With Truth she wedded in the secret grove,
Immortal Truth! and daughters bless'd their love.
-O haste, fair maids! ye Virtues, come away!
Sweet Peace and Plenty lead you on your way!
The balmy shrub for you shall love our shore,
By Ind excell'd, or Araby, no more.

"Lost to our fields, for so the fates ordain,
The dear deserter shall return again.

Come thou, whose thoughts as limpid springs are clear
To lead the train, sweet Modesty, appear:
Here make thy court amidst our rural scene,
And shepherd girls shall own thee for their queen:
With thee be Chastity, of all afraid,

Distrusting all;-a wise suspicious maid;

But man the most :-not more the mountain-doe
Holds the swift falcon for her deadly foe.
Cold is her breast, like flowers that drink the dew;
A silken veil conceals her from the view.
No wild desires amidst thy train be known;
But Faith, whose heart is fix'd on one alone:
Desponding Meekness, with her downcast eyes,
And friendly Pity, full of tender sighs;

And Love the last: by these your hearts approve;
These are the virtues that must lead to love."

Thus sung the swain; and ancient legends say
The maids of Bagdat verified the lay:
Dear to the plains, the Virtues came along;
The shepherds lov'd; and Selim bless'd his song.

ODE TO FEAR.

THOU, to whom the world unknown
With all its shadowy shapes is shown;
Who seest appall'd th' unreal scene,
While fancy lifts the veil between:
Ah, Fear! ah, frantic Fear!

I see, I see thee near.

I know thy hurried step, thy haggard eye;
Like thee I start, like thee disorder'd fly.

What mortal eye can fix'd behold?
Who stalks his round, an hideous form,
Howling amidst the midnight storm,
Or throws him on the ridgy steep
Of some loose hanging rock to sleep:
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 ghastly train can see,
And look not madly wild, like thee?

ANTISTROPHE.

Thou who such weary lengths hast past,
Where will thou rest, mad nymph, at last?
Say, wilt thou shroud in haunted cell,
Where gloomy rape and murder dwell?
Or in some hollow seat,

'Gainst which the big waves beat,

Hear drowning seamen's cries in tempest brought! Dark power, with shuddering meek submitted thought, Be mine, to read the visions old,

Which thy awakening bards have told;

And, lest thou meet my blasted view,
Hold each strange tale devoutly true!
Ne'er be I found, by thee o'eraw'd,
In that thrice-hallow'd eve abroad,
When ghosts, 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 sacred seat of Shakspeare'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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ODE TO EVENING.

Ir aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song,
May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear,
Like thy own solemn springs,

Thy springs, and dying gales;

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O Nymph reserv'd, while now the bright-hair'd sun
Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,
With brede ethereal wove,

O'erhang his wavy bed:

Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-ey'd bat
With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing;
Or where the beetle winds

His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum:
Now teach me, maid compos'd,

To breathe some soften'd strain,

Whose numbers, stealing through thy dark'ning vale,
May not unseemly with its stillness suit ;
As, musing slow, I hail
Thy genial lov'd return!

For when thy folding-star arising shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
The fragrant Hours, and Elves
Who slept in buds the day;

And many a nymph who wreaths her brows with sedge,
And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still,

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The pensive Pleasures sweet

Prepare thy shadowy car.

Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene;
Or find some ruin, midst its dreary dells,
Whose walls more awful nod
By thy religious gleams.

Or, if chill blustering winds, or driving rain,
Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut,
That, from the mountain's side,
Views wilds, and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discover'd spires;
And hears their simple bell; and marks o'er all
Thy dewy fingers draw
The gradual dusky veil.

While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont,
And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!
While Summer loves to sport
Beneath thy lingering light:

While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves;
Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air,

Affrights thy shrinking train,

And rudely rends thy robes;

So long, regardful of thy quiet rule,

Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace,
Thy gentlest influence own,
And love thy favourite name!

DIRGE IN CYMBELINE, SUNG BY GUIDErius and arVIRAGUS OVER FIDELE, SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD.

To fair Fidele's grassy tomb

Soft maids and village hinds shall bring
Each opening sweet of earliest bloom,
And rifle all the breathing spring.

No wailing ghost shall dare

appear
To vex with shrieks this quiet grove,
But shepherd lads assemble here,

And melting virgins own their love.

No wither'd witch shall here be seen,
No goblins lead their nightly crew;
The female fays shall haunt the green,
And dress thy grave with pearly dew;

The red-breast oft, at evening hours,
Shall kindly lend his little aid,
With hoary moss, and gather'd flowers,
To deck the ground where thou art laid.

When howling winds, and beating rain,
In tempests shake thy sylvan cell,
Or midst the chase, on every plain,

The tender thought on thee shall dwell:

Each lonely scene shall thee restore;
For thee the tear be duly shed;
Belov'd, till life can charm no more,
And mourn'd, till Pity's self be dead.

ODE ON THE DEATH OF MR. THOMSON.

The scene of the following stanzas is supposed to lie on the Thames, near Richmond.

IN yonder grave a Druid lies,

Where slowly winds the stealing wave!

The woera host awoots shall duteon“ rige

In yon deep bed of whispering reeds
His airy harp shall now be laid;
That he, whose heart in sorrow bleeds,
May love through life the soothing shade.

The maids and youths shall linger here;
And, while its sounds at distance swell,
Shall sadly seem in Pity's ear

To hear the woodland pilgrim's knell.

Remembrance oft shall haunt the shore,

When Thames in summer wreaths is drest; And oft suspend the dashing oar,

To bid his gentle spirit rest!

And, oft as ease and health retire
To breezy lawn or forest deep,

The friend shall view yon whitening spire,
And mid the varied landscape weep.

But thou, who own'st that earthly bed,
Ah! what will every dirge avail!

Or tears which love and pity shed,
That mourn beneath the gliding sail !

Yet lives there one whose heedless eye
Shall scorn thy pale shrine glimmering near?
With him, sweet bard! may Fancy die;
And Joy desert the blooming year.

But thou, lorn stream, whose sullen tide
No sedge-crown'd Sisters now attend,
Now waft me from the green hill's side
Whose cold turf hides the buried friend!

And see, the fairy vallies fade;

Dun Night has veil'd the solemn view!
Yet once again, dear parted shade,
Meek Nature's Child, again adieu!

The genial meads, assign'd to bless
Thy life, shall mourn thy early doom;
There hinds and shepherd-girls shall dress,
With simple hands, thy rural tomb.

Long, long thy stone and pointed clay
Shall melt the musing Briton's eyes:
O! vales, and wild woods, shall he say,
In yonder grave your Druid lies!

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