Secander. Oh, stay thee, Agib, for my feet deny, Friend of my heart! Oh turn thee and survey, 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, He blasts our harvests, and deforms our land. 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, 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, 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 When first Distress, with dagger keen, By Pella's* bard, a magic name, By all the griefs his thought could frame, But wherefore need I wander wide Deserted stream, and mute ? There first the wren thy myrtles shed And while he sung the female heart, Come, Pity! come; by Fancy's aid, Its southern site, its truth complete, * Euripides. † A river in Sussex, There Picture's toil shall well relate, The buskin'd Muse shall near her stand, There let me oft, retired by day, There waste the mournful lamp of night, To hear a British shell! TO FEAR. THOU, to whom the world unknown, see, I see thee near. I know thy hurried step, thy haggard eye! 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, *Sophocles' Electra. Who, Fear, this ghastly train can see, Epode. In earliest Greece, to thee, with partial choice, Yet he, the bard who first invoked thy name, And he the wretch of Thebes no more appear'd. O Fear! I know thee by my throbbing heart, Antistrophe. Thou who such weary lengths hast past, '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, |