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 inspir'd 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 hallow'd seat,

'Gainst which the big waves beat,

Hear drowning seaman's cries, in tempests brought? Dark power, with shudd'ring 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!

* Jocasta.

εδ ετ' ορώρει βοη
Ην μεν Σιωπη; φθεγμα δ' εξαίφνης τινος
Θωυξεν αυτόν, ωστε παντας όρθιας
Στησαι φόβω δείσαντας εξαιφνης Τρίχας.

See the dip. Colon, of Sophocles.

O thon 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!

Ode to Simplicity.

Thou by Nature taught

To breathe her genuine thought

In numbers warmly pure, and sweetly strong;
Who first on mountains wild,

In Fancy, loveliest child,

Thy babe, or Pleasure's, nurs'd the powers of song!

Thou, who, with hermit heart,
Disdain'st the wealth of art,

And gauds, and pageant weeds, and training pall;

But com'st a decent maid,

In attic robe array'd,

O chaste, unboastful Nymph, to thee I call!

By all the honey'd store

On Hybla's thymy shore;

By all her blooms, and mingled murmurs dear;
By her whose love-lorn woe,

In evening musings slow,

Sooth'd sweetly sad Electra's poet's ear:

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 allur'd thy future feet.

* The andwv, or nightingale, for which Sophocles seems to have entertained a peculiar fondness.

B

O sister meek of Truth,

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 raise their order'd hues.

While Rome could none esteem

But virtue's patriot theme,

You lov'd her hills, and led her laureat band:
But staid to sing alone

To one distinguish'd throne;

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

No more, in hall or bower,
The Passions own thy power;

Love, only Love her forceless numbers meau:
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,

Faints the cold work, till thou inspire the whole; What each, what all supply,

May court, may charin, our eye;

Thou, only thou canst raise the meeting soul!

Of these let others ask,
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.

S 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,
Might hope the magic girdle wear,
At solemn turney 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,
Some chaste and angel-friend to virgin-fame,
With whisper'd spell had burst the starting band,
It left unbless'd her loath'd 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, prepar'd and bath'd in heaven,
The cest of amplest power is given:
To few the godlike gifts assigns,

To gird their best 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 drest with springs and forests tall,

And pour'd the main engirting all,
Long by the lov'd enthusiast woo'd,
Himself in some diviner mood,

* Florimel. See Spenser, Leg. 4th.

Retiring, sat with her alone,

And plac'd 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,
Breath'd 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,
Fair from the sainted growing woof:
But near it sat ecstatic Wonder,
Listening the deep applauding thunder;
And Truth, in sunny vest array'd,
By whose the tarsel's eyes were made;
All the shadowy tribes of mind,
In braided dance, their murmurs join'd,
And all the bright uncounted powers
Who feed on heaven's ambrosial flowers.
Where is the bard whose soul can now
Its high presuming hopes avow!
Where he who thinks, with rapture blind,
This hallow'd work for him design'd?

High on some cliff, to heaven up-pil❜d,
Of rude access, of prospect wild,
Where, tangled round the jealous steep,
Strange shades o'erbrow the valleys deep,
And holy Genii guard the rock,

Its glooms embrown, its springs unlock,
While on its rich ambitious head,

An Eden, like his own, lies spread,

1 view that oak, the fancied glades among, By which as Milton lay, his evening ear,

From many a cloud that dropp'd ethereal dew,

Nigh spher'd in heaven, its native strains could hear; On which that ancient trump he reach'd was hung: