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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 a while 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!

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 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!

O thou whose spirit most possest
The sacred seat of Shakespeare'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 EVENING.

IF aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song,

May hope, O pensive Eve, to soothe thine ear,
Like thy own brawling springs,

Thy springs, and dying gales;

O nymph reserv'd, while now the bright-hair'd sun, Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts, With brede ethereal wove,

O'erhang his wavy bed:

Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-ey'd bat, With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing, Or where the beetle winds

His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum:
Now teach me, maid compos'd,

To breathe some soften'd strain,

Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale, May not unseemly with its stillness suit;

As musing slow, I hail

Thy genial lov'd return!

For when thy holding-star arising shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
The fragrant Hours, and Elves

Who slept in buds the day,

And many a Nymph who wreaths her brows with sedge,

And sheds with fresh'ning dew, and, lovelier still,
The pensive Pleasures sweet,
Prepare thy shadowy car.

Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene;
Or find some ruin, 'midst its dreary dells,
Whose walls more awful nod

By thy religious gleams.

Or, if chill blust'ring winds, or driving rain,
Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut,
That, from the mountain's side,
Views wilds, and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discover'd spires;
And hears their simple bell; and marks o'er all
Thy dewy fingers draw

The gradual dusky veil.

While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont,
And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!
While Summer loves to sport
Beneath thy ling'ring light;

While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves;
Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air,
Affrights thy shrinking train,

And rudely rends thy robes;

So long, regardful of thy quiet rule,

Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace, Thy gentlest influence own,

And love thy fav'rite name!

DIRGE IN CYMBELINE.

Sung by Guiderus and Arviragus over Fidele, supposed to be dead.

T

fair Fidele's grassy tomb

Soft maids and village hinds shall bring

Each opening sweet of earliest bloom,

And rifle all the breathing spring.

No wailing ghost shall dare appear
To vex with shrieks this quiet grove;
But shepherd lads assemble here,

And melting virgins own their love.
No wither'd witch shall here be seen;
No goblins lead their nightly crew:
The female fays shall haunt the green,
And dress thy grave with pearly dew!
The redbreast oft, at evening hours,
Shall kindly lend his little aid,

With hoary moss, and gather'd flowers,
To deck the ground where thou art laid.

When howling winds, and beating rain,
In tempests shake thy sylvan cell;
Or, 'midst the chase, on every plain,
The tender thought on thee shall dwell;

Each lonely scene shall thee restore;
For thee the tear be duly shed;
Belov'd, till life can charm no more,

And mourn'd till Pity's self be dead.

WILLIAM SHENSTONE.

THE SCHOOL-MISTRESS.

In Imitation of Spenser.

Anditæ voces, vagitus & ingens,

Infantumque animæ flentes in limine primo.

Imitation.

Virg.

And mingled sounds and infant plaints we hear,
That pierce the entrance shrill, and wound the tender ear.

H me! full sorely is my heart forlorn,

To think how modest worth neglected lies,
While partial Fame doth with her blast adorn,
Such deeds alone as pride and pomp disguise,
Deeds of ill sort, and mischievous emprize:
Lend me thy clarion, Goddess! let me try
To sound the praise of Merit, ere it dies,
Such as I oft have chaunced to espy
Lost in the dreary shades of dull obscurity.
In ev'ry village mark'd with little spire,
Embower'd in trees, and hardly known to fame,
There dwells, in lowly shed and mean attire,
A matron old, whom we school-mistress name,
Who boasts unruly brats with birch to tame;
They grieven sore, in piteous durance pent,
Aw'd by the pow'r of this relentless dame,
And oft times, on vagaries idly bent,

For unkempt hair, or task unconn'd, are sorely shent.
And all in sight doth rise a birchen tree,
Which Learning near her little dome did stowe,

Whillow a twig of small regard to see,

Tho' now so wide its waving branches flow,
And work the simple vassal's mickle woe;
For not a wind might curl the leaves that blow,
But their limbs shudder'd, and their pulse beat low,
And as they look'd, they found their horror grew,
And shap'd it into rods, and tingled at the view.

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