ODE AGAINST DESPAIR. Joseph Warton Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
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. 253-255. 4v. ; 8⁰.

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ODE AGAINST DESPAIR . BY THE SAME . FArewell thou dimpled cherub Joy , Thou rose-crown'd , ever-smiling boy , Wont thy sister Hope to lead To dance along the primrose mead ! No more , bereft of happy hours , I seek thy lute-resounding bowers , But to yon ruin'd tower repair , To meet the God of groans , Despair ; Who , on that ivy-darken'd ground , Still takes at eve his silent round , Or sits yon new-made grave beside , Where lies a frantic Suicide : While labouring sighs my heart-strings break , Thus to the sullen Power I speak : " Haste , with thy poison'd dagger , haste , " To pierce this sorrow-laden breast ; " Or lead me at the dead of night , " To some sea-beat mountain's height , " Whence with headlong haste I'll leap " To the dark bosom of the deep ; " Or shew me far from human eye , " Some cave to muse in , starve , and die , " No weeping friend or brother near , " My last fond , faultering words to hear ? " 'Twas thus with weight of woes opprest , I sought to ease my bruised breast : When straight more gloomy grew the shade , And lo ! a tall majestic maid ! Her limbs , not delicately fair , Robust , and of a martial air ; She bore of steel a polish'd shield , Where highly-sculptur'd I beheld Th' Athenian Socrates . martyr smiling stand , The baleful goblet in his hand ; Sparkled her eyes with lively flame , And Patience was the seraph's name ; Sternly she look'd , and stern began — " Thy sorrows cease , complaining man , " Rouse thy weak soul , appease thy moan , " Soon are the clouds of sadness gone ; " Tho' now in Grief's dark groves you walk , " Where griesly fiends around you stalk , " Beyond , a blissful city lies , " Far from whose gates each anguish flies : " Take thou this shield , which once of yore " Ulysses and Alcides wore , " And which in later days I gave " To Regulus and Raleigh brave ; " In exile or in dungeon drear " Their mighty minds could banish fear ; " Thy heart no tenfold woes shall feel , " 'Twas Virtue temper'd the rough steel , " And , by her heavenly fingers wrought , " To me the precious present brought . "