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ODES.

ODE TO PITY.

O THOU, the friend of man, assign'd
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!

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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!

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a Euripides, of whom Aristotle pronounces, on a comparison of him with Sophocles, that he was the greater master of the tender passions, ἦν τραγικώτερος.

But wherefore need I wander wide
To old Ilissus' distant side,

Deserted stream, and mute?

Wild Arunb 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 unspoil'd by art,
Thy turtles mix'd 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 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,

With each disastrous tale.

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

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,
Till, Virgin, thou again delight

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ODE TO FEAR.

{STREP

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!

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
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 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,
Who lap the blood of sorrow, wait:

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Alluding to the Kúvaç ävкTOVç of Sophocles. See

the Electra.

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