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;
While 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;
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-ful Muse addrest her infant tongue:
The maids and matrons, on her awful voice,

Silent and pale, in wild amazement hung.

Yet he, the Bard1 who first invoked thy name,
Disdain'd in Marathon its power to feel:

For not alone he nursed the poet's flame,

But reach'd from Virtue's hand the patriot's steel.

But who is he,2 whom later garlands grace,
Who left awhile o'er Hybla's3 dews to rove,
With trembling eyes thy dreary steps to trace,
Where thou and furies shared the baleful grove?
Wrapt in thy cloudy veil, th' incestuous Queen4
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 inspired 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,

1 The Greek tragic poet, Æschylus, who was in the battle of Marathon, between the Athenians and Persians, B. C. 490.

2 Sophocles, another Greek dramatic poet.

3 Hybla was a mountain in Sicily, famous for its honey and bees.

4 Jocasta, the queen of Thebes, who, after the death of her husband Laius, married her own son (Edipus (whom Collins here calls the "wretch") without knowing who he was. On this story la founded that most sublime and pathetic tragedy, the "Edipus Tyrannus" of Sophocles.

Hear drowning seamen's cries in tempests brought?
Dark power, with shuddering 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'erawed,
In that thrice-hallow'd evel 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 Shakspeare'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.a

If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song,
May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear,
Like thy own solemn springs,

Thy springs, and dying gales;

O nymph reserved, 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-eyed 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 composed,

To breathe some soften'd strain,

1 He here alludes to the old superstitions connected with All-Hallow Even, or Hallow E'en-the last evening of October.

2 Though blank verse had been so successfully employed in English heroic measure by one of the greatest poets that ever lived, and made the vehicle of the noblest poem that ever was written, yet no one had introduced it into lyric poetry before Collins. That he is most happy and successful in the use of it, who can doubt after reading this exquisite "Ode to Evening," the imagery and enthusiasm of which must render it delightful to every reader of taste?

"Collins has given but one entire instance of reflecting the scenery of nature as from a poetical mirror. This is the Ode to Evening. Almost all else is the embodiment of intelect. But, this single specimen is perfect in its way. There is not one idle epithet or ill-chosen image:-the novelty and happiness of combination show invention even here; though nature is neither added to nor heightened."--Sir Egerton Brydges,

Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening 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-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 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!

THE PASSIONS. AN ODE FOR MUSIC.1

When Music, heavenly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung,
The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
Throng'd around her magic cell,

1 If the music which was composed for this ode had equal merit with the ode itself, it must have peen the most excellent performance of the kind in which poetry and music have, in modern times, united. Other pieces of the same nature have derived their greatest reputation from the perfection

Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Possest beyond the Muse's painting;
By turns they felt the glowing mind
Disturb'd, delighted, raised, refined.
Till once, 'tis said, when all were fired,
Fill'd with fury, rapt, inspired,
From the supporting myrtles round
They snatch'd her instruments of sound;
And as they oft had heard apart
Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
Each, for madness ruled the hour,
Would prove his own expressive power.

First Fear his hand, its skill to try,
Amid the chords bewilder'd laid,
And back recoil'd, he knew not why,
E'en at the sound himself had made.

Next Anger rush'd, his eyes on fire,

In lightnings own'd his secret stings,
In one rude clash he struck the lyre,
And swept with hurried hand the strings.

With woful measures wan Despair-
Low sullen sounds his grief beguiled,
A solemn, strange, and mingled air,
'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild.

But thou, O Hope with eyes so fair,
What was thy delighted measure?

Still it whisper'd promised pleasure,

And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail!
Still would her touch the strain prolong,
And from the rocks, the woods, the vale,

She call'd on Echo still through all the song;

And where her sweetest theme she chose,

A soft responsive voice was heard at every close,

And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair.
And longer had she sung-but, with a frown,

Revenge impatient rose;

He threw his blood-stain'd sword in thunder down,

And with a withering look,

The war-denouncing trumpet took,

And blew a blast so loud and dread,

Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe.

of the music that accompanied them, having in themselves little more merit than that of an ordinary ballad: but in this we have the whole soul and power of poetry:-expression that, even without the aid of music, strikes to the heart; and imagery of power enough to transport the attention without the forceful alliance of corresponding sounds. What then must have been the effects of these united ! The picture of Hope in this ode is beautiful almost beyond imitation. By the united powers of imagery and harmony, that delightful being is exhibited with all the charms and graces that pleasure and fancy have appropriated to her. The descriptions of Joy, Jealousy, and Revenge, are excellent, though not equally so: those of Melancholy and Cheerfulness are superior to every thing of the kind; and, upon the whole, there may be very little hazard in asserting that this is the finest ode in the English language. Read-Observations on Collins's Poems in the 58th vol. of Johnson's Poets.

And ever and anon he beat

The doubling drum with furious heat;

And though sometimes, each dreary pause between,
Dejected Pity at his side

Her soul-subduing voice applied,

Yet still he kept his wild unalter'd mien,

While each strain'd ball of sight seem'd bursting from his head.

Thy numbers, Jealousy, to naught were fix'd,

Sad proof of thy distressful state,

Of differing themes the veering song was mix'd,

And now it courted Love, now raving call'd on Hate.

With eyes up-raised, as one inspired,

Pale Melancholy sat retired,

And from her wild sequester'd seat,

In notes by distance made more sweet,

Pour'd through the mellow horn her pensive soul:
And dashing soft from rocks around,

Bubbling runnels join'd the sound;

Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole,
Or o'er some haunted streams with fond delay,
Round a holy calm diffusing,

Love of peace, and lonely musing,

In hollow murmurs died away.

But, O, how alter'd was its sprightlier tone!
When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue,
Her bow across her shoulder flung,

Her buskins gemm'd with morning dew,

Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung,

The hunter's call to Faun and Dryad known:

The oak-crown'd sisters, and their chaste-eyed queen,
Satyrs and sylvan boys were seen,

Peeping from forth their alleys green;

Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear,

And Sport leapt up, and seized his beechen spear.

Last came Joy's ecstatic trial;

He, with viny crown advancing,

First to the lively pipe his hand addrest,

But soon he saw the brisk-awakening viol,

Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best.
They would have thought, who heard the strain,
They saw in Tempe's vale her native maids,
Amidst the festal sounding shades,

To some unwearied minstrel dancing;

While, as his flying fingers kiss'd the strings,

Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round,
Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound,

And he, amidst his frolic play,

As if he would the charming air repay,

Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings.

O Music, sphere-descended maid,
Friend of pleasure, wisdom's aid,