ODE TO FEA R. 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, For, lo! what monsters in thy train appear! Danger, whose limbs of giant mold What mortal eye can fix'd behold ? Who stalks his round, an hideous form, Howling amidst the midnight storm ; D 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; Lifts her red arm, expos'd and bare: On whom that ravening brood of Fate, Who, Fear, this ghastly train can see, And look not madly wild, like thee? 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 invok'd thy name, Disdain'd in Marathon its power to feel: For not alone he nurs'd the poet's flame, But reach'd from Virtue's hand the patriot's steel. 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 shar'd 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. * Æfchylus. + Jocasta. O Fear! I know thee by my throbbing heart, Thy withering power inspir'd each mournful line, Tho' gentle Pity claim her mingled part, Yet all the thunders of the scenes 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 hallow'd seat, 'Gainst which the big waves beat, Hear drowning seamens' cries in tempests brought! Dark Power! with shuddering, meek, submitted thought, Be mine to read the visions old, 1 Which thy awakening bards have told. |