Secander. In vain Circassia boasts her spicy groves, For ever fam'd 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 sends 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 stedfast 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 Aames the way; Yet none so cruel as the Tartar foe, To death inur'd, and nurst 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 moon-light hills renew'd their flight.

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 1 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 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:
Oo 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?

. 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. 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.

* Æschylus.

of Jocasta.

ANTISTROPHE.
Thou who such weary lengths has 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 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;
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!

ODE TO SIMPLICITY.

O 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, and 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 trailing 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 enamelld side,

When holy freedom died,
No equal haunt allur'd thy future feet.

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 range their order'd hues.
While Rome could none esteem,

But virtue's patriot theme,
You lov'd her hills, and led her laureate band;

But staid to sing alone

To one distinguish'd throne,
And turn’d thy face, and fed her alter'd land.
No more, in hall or bower,

The passions own thy power,
Love, only love, her forceless numbers mean:

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 !

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.

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, *
Might hope the magic girdle wear,
At solemn tournay 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 unblest her loath'd dishonour'd side;

Happier hopeless fair, if never

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

To wł:om, prepar'd and bath'd in heaven,
The cost of amplest power is given,

To few the godlike gift assigns,
To gird their blest prophetic ioins,
And gaze her visions wild, and feel unmix'd her

flame. The band, as fairy legends say, Was wove on that creating day,

* Florimel. See Spenser, Leg. 4.