's[13] bard, a magic name,
By all the griefs his thought could frame,
Receive my humble rite:
Long, Pity, let the nations view 10
The 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? 15
Wild Arun[14] 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, 20
To him thy cell was shown;
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, 25
E'en 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. 30

There Picture's toils 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, 35
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, 40
Till, Virgin, thou again delight
To hear a British shell!

FOOTNOTES:

[13] Euripides, of whom Aristotle pronounces, on a comparison of him
with Sophocles, that he was the greater master of the tender
passions, ~en tragikoteros~. C.

[14] The river Arun runs by the village of Trotton in Sussex, where
Otway had his birth.

ODE TO FEAR.

Thou, to whom the world unknown,
With all its shadowy shapes, is shown;
Who seest, appall'd, the unreal scene,
While Fancy lifts the veil between:
Ah Fear! ah frantic Fear! 5
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 10
What mortal eye can fix'd behold?
Who stalks his round, an hideous form,
Howling amidst the midnight storm;
Or thr