ODE TO HORROR. IN THE ALLEGORIC, DESCRIPTIVE, ALLITERATIVE, EPITHETICAL, FANTASTIC, HYPERBOLICAL, AND DIABOLICAL STYLE OF OUR MODERN ODE-WRIGHTS, AND MONODY-MONGERS. BY —. O GODDESS of the gloomy scene, Of shadowy shapes thou black-brow'd queen. Thy tresses dark with ivy crown'd, On yonder mouldering abby found; Oft wont from charnels damp and dim To call the sheeted spectre grim, While as his loose chains loudly clink, Thou add'st a length to every link: O thou, that lov'st at eve to seek The pensive-pacing pilgrim meek, And set'st before his shuddering eyes Strange forms, and fiends of giant-size, As wildly works thy wizzard will, Till fear-struck Fancy has her fill: Dark power, whose magic might prevails O'er hermit-rocks, and fairy-vales; O Goddess, erst by Spenser view'd, What time th' enchanter vile embrued, His hands in Florimel's pure heart, Till loos'd by steel-clad Britomart: O thou that erst on Fancy's wing Didst terror-trembling Tasso bring, To groves where kept damn'd Furies dire Their blue-tipt battlements of fire: Thou that thro' many a darksome pine, O'er the rugged rock recline, Did'st wake the hollow-whispering breeze With care-consumed Eloise: O thou, with whom in chearless cell, The midnight-clock pale pris'ners tell; O haste thee, mild Miltonic maid, From yonder yew's sequester'd shade; More bright than all the fabled Nine, Teach me to breathe the solemn line! O bid my well-rang'd numbers rise Pervious to none but Attic eyes; O give the strain that madness moves, Till every starting sense approves! What felt the Gallic traveller, When far in Arab-desert drear He found within the catacomb, Alive, the terrors of a tomb? While many a mummy thro' the shade, In hieroglyphic stole array'd, Seem'd to uprear the mystic head, And trace the gloom with ghostly tread; Thou heardst him pour the stifled groan, Horror! his soul was all thy own! O mother of the fire-clad thought, O haste thee from thy grave-like grot! (What time the witch perform'd her rite) Sprung from th' embrace of Taste and Night! O queen! that erst did'st thinly spread The willowy leaves o'er Isis' head, And to her meek mien did'st dispense Woe's most awful negligence; What time, in cave, with visage pale, She told her elegiac tale: O thou! whom wandering Warton saw, Amaz'd with more than youthful awe, As by the pale moon's glimmering gleam He mus'd his melancholy theme: O curfeu-loving goddess, haste! O waft me to some Scythian waste, Where, in Gothic solitude, 'Mid prospects most sublimely rude, Beneath a rough rock's gloomy chasm, Thy sister sits, Enthusiasm: Let me with her, in magic trance, Hold most delirious dalliance; Till I, thy pensive votary, Horror, look madly wild like thee; Until I gain true transport's shore, And life's retiring scene is o'er; Aspire to some more azure sky, Remote from dim mortality; At length, recline the fainting head, In Druid-dreams dissolv'd and dead.