Yet he, the Bard1 who first invoked thy name,
Disdain'd in Marathon its power to feel :
For not alone he nursed the poet's flame,

But reach'd from Virtue's hand the patriot's steel.

But who is he,2 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 shared the baleful grove

Wrapt in thy cloudy veil, th' incestuous queen
Sigh'd the sad call her son and husband heard,
When once alone it broke the silent scene,

And he the wretch of Thebes no more appear'd.

?

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,
Where wilt thou rest, mad Nymph, at last?
Say, wilt thou shroud in haunted cell,

Where gloomy Rape and Murder dwell?
Or in some hollow'd seat,

'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 :
And, lest thou meet my blasted view,

Hold each strange tale devoutly true;

''Bard:' Æschylus.

Queen' Jocasta.

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Who is he,' &c.: Sophocles. 36 'Incestuous

Ne'er be I found, by thee o'erawed,
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!

not part o

1 0 THOU by Nature taught,

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To breathe her genuine thought,

In numbers warmly pure, and sweetly strong;

Who first on mountains wild,

In Fancy, loveliest child,

Thy babe, and Pleasure's, nursed the powers of song!

2 Thou, who with hermit heart

Disdain'st the wealth of art,

And gauds, and pageant weeds, and trailing pall:

But comest a decent maid,

In Attic robe array'd,

O chaste, unboastful Nymph, to thee I call!

On Hybla's thymy shore;

By all her blooms, and mingled murmurs dear;

By her1 whose love-lorn woe,

In evening musings slow,

Soothed sweetly sad Electra's Poet's 2 ear:

4

By old Cephisus deep,

Who spread his wavy sweep

In warbled wanderings round thy green retreat;

On whose enamell'd side,

When holy Freedom died,

No equal haunt allured thy future feet.

To my admiring youth,

Thy sober aid and native charms infuse !
The flowers that sweetest breathe,
Though beauty cull'd the wreath,

Still ask thy hand to range their order'd hues.

6

While Rome could none esteem,

But virtue's patriot theme,

You loved her hills, and led her laureate band:
But stay'd to sing alone

To one distinguish'd throne;

And turn'd thy face, and fled her alter'd land.

The Passions own thy power,

Love, only love, her forceless numbers mean:

''Her :' the nightingale.—2 Sad Electra's Poet:' borrowed from Milton's Eighth Sonnet.

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For thou hast left her shrine ;

Nor olive more, nor vine,

Shall gain thy feet to bless the servile scene.

Though taste, though genius bless

To some divine excess,

Faint's the cold work till thou inspire the whole; What each, what all supply,

May court, may charm our eye;

Thou, only thou, canst raise the meeting soul!

To aid some mighty task,

I only seek to find thy temperate vale :
Where oft my reed might sound

To maids and shepherds round,

And all thy sons, O Nature! learn my tale.

ODE ON THE POETICAL CHARACTER.

As once, if not with light regard,
I read aright that gifted bard-
Him whose school above the rest
His loveliest elfin queen has blest—
One, only one, unrivall'd fair,1
Might hope the magic girdle wear,
At solemn tourney hung on high,
The wish of each love-darting eye;-
Lo! to each other nymph in turn applied,
As if, in air unseen, some hovering hand,

1 'Unrivall'd fair:' Florimel. See Spenser, Leg. 4th.

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Some chaste and angel friend to virgin fame,
With whisper'd spell had burst the starting band,
It left unblest her loathed dishonour'd side;

Happier hopeless fair, if never

Her baffled hand with vain endeavour
Had touch'd that fatal zone to her denied!
Young Fancy thus, to me divinest name,

To whom, prepared and bathed in heaven,
The cest of amplest power is given :
To few the godlike gift assigns,

To gird their bless'd prophetic loins,

And gaze her visions wild, and feel unmix'd her flame.

The band, as fairy legends say,

Was wove on that creating day,

When He, who call'd with thought to birth

Yon tented sky, this laughing earth,

And dress'd with springs, and forests tall,
And pour'd the main engirting all.
Long by the loved enthusiast woo'd,
Himself in some diviner mood,
Retiring, sate with her alone,

And placed her on his sapphire throne;
The whiles, the vaulted shrine around,
Seraphic wires were heard to sound,
Now sublimest triumph swelling,
Now on love and mercy dwelling;
And she, from out the veiling cloud,
Breathed her magic notes aloud:
And thou, thou rich-hair'd youth of morn,
And all thy subject life was born!
The dangerous passions kept aloof,
Far from the sainted growing woof:
But near it sate ecstatic Wonder,
Listening the deep applauding thunder :

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