Whose numbers, stealing through thy darken

ing vale,

May not unseemly with its stillness suit;
As, musing slow, I hail

Thy genial loved return!

For when thy folding-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 wreathes her brows with sedge,

And sheds the freshening 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 blustering 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-discovered 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 lingering 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 favorite name!

ODE TO PITY.

THOU, the friend of man assigned
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 shown;

And while he sung the female heart, With youth's soft notes unspoiled by art, Thy turtles mixed their own.

Come, Pity, come, by Fancy's aid,
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.

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

The buskined 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,

Allowed with thee to dwell:

There waste the mournful lamp of night, Till, Virgin, thou again delight

To hear a British shell!

ODE TO FEAR.

HOU, to whom the world unknown, With all its shadowy shapes, is shown ; Who seest, appalled, the 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 disordered fly.
For, lo, what monsters in thy train appear!
Danger, whose limbs of giant mould
What mortal eye can fixed 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 joined,
Who prompt to deeds accursed the mind:
And those, the fiends, who, near allied,
O'er Nature's wounds and wrecks preside;
Whilst Vengeance, in the lurid air,
Lifts her red arm, exposed and bare:
On whom that ravening brood of Fate,