ODE TO FEAR. William Collins Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
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Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. T116245 1135 K093079.002 Pearch, G. A collection of poems in four volumes. By several hands. Vol. II. [The second edition]. London printed for G. Pearch 1770 pp. 31-34. 4v. ; 8⁰.

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ODE TO FEAR . BY THE SAME . THOU , to whom the world unknown With all its shadowy shapes is shown ; Who seest appall'd th' 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 monsrers in thy train appear ! Danger , whose limbs of giant mold 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 accurs'd 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 , expos'd 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-full Muse addrest her infant tongue ; The maids and matrons , on her awful voice , Silent and pale in wild amazement hung . Yet he , the Bard Aeschylus . who first invok'd thy name , Disdain'd in Marathon its power to feel : For not alone he nurs'd the poet's flame , But reach'd from Virtue's hand the patriot's steel . But who is he whom later garlands grace , Who left a-while o'er Hybla's dews to rove , With trembling eyes thy dreary steps to trace , Where thou and furies shar'd the baleful grove ? Wrapt in thy cloudy veil th' incestuous Queen Jocasta . 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 inspir'd each mournful line , Tho' 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 hallow'd seat , 'Gainst which the big waves beat ? Hear drowning seamens 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'er-aw'd , In that thrice-hallow'd eve 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 Shakespear'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 !