Secander.

Oh, stay thee, Agib, for my feet deny,

No longer friendly to my life, to fly.

Friend of my heart! Oh turn thee and survey,

Trace our long flight through all its length of way! And first review that long-extended plain,

And yon wide groves, already past with pain! Yon ragged cliff, whose dangerous path we tried! And, last, this lofty mountain's weary side!'

Agib.

'Weak as thou art, yet hapless must thou know
The toils of flight, or some severer woe!
Still as I haste, the Tartar shouts behind,
And shrieks and sorrows load the saddening wind:
In rage of heart, with ruin in his hand,

He blasts our harvests, and deforms our land.
Yon citron grove, whence first in fear we came,
Droops its fair honours to the conquering flame :
Far fly the swains, like us, in deep despair,
And leave to ruffian bands their fleecy care.'

་

Secander.

Unhappy land! whose blessings tempt the sword, In vain, unheard, thou call'st thy Persian lord! In vain thou court'st him, helpless, to thine aid, To shield the shepherd, and protect the maid! Far off, in thoughtless indolence resign'd, Soft dreams of love and pleasure soothe his mind; Midst fair sultanas lost in idle joy,

No wars alarm him, and no fears annoy.'

Agib.

'Yet these green hills, in summer's sultry heat, Have lent the monarch oft a cool retreat. Sweet to the sight is Zabran's flowery plain, And once by maids and shepherds loved in vain! No more the virgins shall delight to rove By Sargis' banks, or Irwan's shady grove; On Tarkie's mountains catch the cooling gale, Or breathe the sweets of Aly's flowery vale: Fair scenes! but, ah! no more with peace possest, With ease alluring, and with plenty blest!

No more the shepherds' whitening tents appear,
Nor the kind products of a bounteous year;
No more the date, with snowy blossoms crown'd!
But Ruin spreads her baleful fires around.'
Secander.

In vain Circassia boasts her spicy groves,
For ever famed for pure and happy loves:
In vain she boasts her fairest of the fair,

Their eyes' blue languish, and their golden hair.
Those eyes in tears their fruitless grief must send;
Those hairs the Tartar's cruel hand shall rend.'

Agib.

'Ye Georgian swains, that piteous learn from far Circassia's ruin, and the waste of war:

Some weightier arms than crooks and staffs prepare,
To shield your harvests, and defend your fair :
The Turk and Tartar like designs pursue,
Fix'd to destroy, and steadfast to undo.
Wild as his land, in native deserts bred,
By lust incited, or by malice led,

The villain Arab, as he prowls for prey,

Oft marks with blood and wasting flames the way; Yet none so cruel as the Tartar foe,

To death inured, and nursed in scenes of woe.'

He said: when loud along the vale was heard A shriller shriek, and nearer fires appear'd. Th' affrighted shepherds through the dews of night, Wide o'er the moonlight hills renew'd their flight.

ODES,

DESCRIPTIVE AND ALLEGORICAL.

TO PITY.

O THOU! the friend of man, assign'd
With balmy hands his wounds to bind,
And charm his frantic woe;

When first Distress, with dagger keen,
Broke forth to waste his destined scene,
His wild unsated 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 sky-worn robes of tenderest blue,
And eyes of dewy light!

But wherefore need I wander wide
To old Ilissus' distant side,

Deserted stream, and mute ?
Wild Arun+ too has heard thy strains,
And Echo, midst my native plains,
Been soothed by Pity's lute.

There first the wren thy myrtles shed
On gentlest Otway's infant head,
To him thy cell was shewn ;

And while he sung the female heart,
With youth's soft 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 design:

Its southern site, its truth complete,
Shall raise a wild enthusiast heat

In all who view the shrine.

* Euripides.

† A river in Sussex,

There Picture's toil shall well relate,
How chance, or hard involving fate,
O'er mortal bliss prevail :

The buskin'd Muse shall near her stand,
And sighing prompt her tender hand,
With each disastrous tale.

There let me oft, retired by day,
In dreams of passion 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!

TO FEAR.

THOU, to whom the world unknown,
With all its shadowy shapes, is shewn;
Who see'st 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 mould

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 accursed 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, exposed and bare :
On whom that ravening* brood of Fate,
Who lap the blood of Sorrow, wait;

*Sophocles' Electra.

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 &nd pale, in wild amazement hung.

Yet he, the bard 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, 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 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 hallow'd seat,

'Gainst which the big waves beat,

Hear drowning seamen's cries in tempests brought? Dark Power! with shuddering, meek, submitted 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;

[thought,