1797] 
4 457")) : 
ORIGINAL POETRY. 
ODE TO TERROR. 
MONARCH of the gloomy train ! 
Which haunt the fear-diftraéted brain 5 
I feel—I feel, my lab’ring breaft, 
Grim Terror, by thy potent fpells poffefs’d : 
As thy difmal fcenes unfold, 
The flagging ftream of life grows cold; 
My trembling limbs, my briftly hair, 
My hurried breath, and ftarting eye, 
Fix'd, tho’ blatted—all declare, 
Tremendous power, thy ghaftly forma is nigh! 
Upborn by thee, amid the darken’d air, 
Now dimly breaks the boiling deep below 3 
While the livid lightnings glare-— 
White the raging whirlwinds blow ! 
Hark! by ftarts, what mournful cries 
>Mid the mingled ftorm arife ! 
Some veffel ftrikes, with fudden fhock, 
Upen the lurking pointed rock : 
QO mercy ! hear the dying crew ! 
See how aloft the flraining furge they gain ! 
Tis paft—the dim difcover’d fragments view, 
Snatch’d in wild eddies oer the fiery main. 
Their agonizing cries are o’er——_ 
Deep, deep they fink—to rife no more. 
Too well that cruel {mile I read, 
Turnd on the fpot, where thoufands foon muft 
bleed ; 
Whofe bright arms, gleaming from afar, 
Now fwell the favage pomp of war. 
As array’d, on either hand, 
Front to front. the {quadrons ftand 5 
Ere the fhriekscf death refound— 
Ere they bice the crimfon ground ; 
See srim Havoc, het from Hell, 
With all the faries in her train, 
Hov'ring low, with dire delight, 
>Twixt the clofing ranks of fight ; 
Prepar’d the tide of blood to fwell, 
And fcour the groaning plain: 
Now the thundering peals arife, 
Vengeful fhouts and dying cries ; 
Yill Vidtry waves her purple flag on high, 
And echoing triumph rends the tortur’d fky. 
Tis night! now over the filent field, 
. By the pale moon’s light reveal’d, 
I fee thee fteal to view the feaft of death! 
To hear the faint expiring groan, 
The mutter’d prayer, the hollow moan, 
The parch*d throat gafping hard for breath 5 
Arm’d with a dagger deep imbru’d, 
While coward Rapine prowls the flippery 
plain, 
And giant Slaughter, fmear?d with blood, 
Reclines his weary limbs on heaps of flain! 
But who is fhe ? Misfortune’s child, 
With hurried ftep, and afpect wild, 
‘ Who hither feems to move? 
~ And bending oft, furveys each palid face, 
As if the wifh’d fome friend to trace ? 
Alas! the feeks her love ! 
And, lo! his breathlefs corpfe the {pies —~ i 
She canpot weep—twift frenzy lights her} 
eyes, 4 
She fhricks, fhe falls, and on his ee | 
bofom dies. 
Now waving high, in proud difdain, 
His broad red pinions o’er the tainted piain, 
See lavage W r exulting flies, 
Wafted on a million’s fighs, 
Where Ambition points the raad, 
Scenting afar new fcenes of blood; 
Yet, wherefore lag yon fiends behind, 
By earth accurite-by life abhorr?d— 
Wheeling, like vultures, on the infeed wind, 
Dreadful followers of the {word ? 
‘Famine and peftilence ! I know you now, 
The country’s blafted as you tread ; 
The groaning city’s chok’d with dead, 
Your horrid work’s complete ! 
No face is feen, no founds arife, 
Save where fome wretch infected flies, 
And {creams along the empty {treet ! 
Grim power! © {pare my aching fight, 
Nor call thy foul unreal train to light, 
By Superftition formed of old, 
In fickly Fancy’s giant mold ! 
Yet, lo! they come—along the midnight air 
What {peétres dire in wild confufion fweep ! 
See by yon dim and difmal glare, 
At once they fink into the yawning deep3 _ 
While faintly from the gulf below, 
Rife the fhrieks of tortur’d woe ! 
Now deep within the tang!d dell, . 
Y hear the wifard’s mutter’d fpell : 
Round him flit a ghaftly brood— 
The fetting moon is turn’é to blood} 
Prompt his orders to perform, 
Rufh the fpirits of the fierm j 
Pitchy darknefs veils the fkies— 
Piping loud the winds arife. 
Hark! they howl along the heath, 
While the fiends, with mournful yell, 
To the benighted wretch foretel, 
Scenes of woe and death ! 
The ftorm is paft ! and o’er yon mouid’ring 
tow’r 
Steals through yon fable clouds a filv’ry beam: 
Avaunt ! thou vifionary power, 
Nor lead me to the haunted ftream, 
That laves its ivy’d walls, 
In vain—its gloomy paths I tread ;— 
What horrid phantom now my fight appals ? 
From the green pavement burfts the fhrouded 
dead ; 
A clear blue flame condu&ts it through the 
gloom, 
?Mid broken ruins to the fatal room : 
And now it points the blood -flain’d bed ' 
=-The firm-built turret fhakes, with difmal 
found, . eee 
’Mid jJonely courts that fpread ther echoes 
round 5 
The 
