Classic Poem

I. 1.

O thou that glad'st the pensive breast;
More than Aurora's smile the pilgrim lorn
Left all night long to mourn
Amidst the horrors of the dreary waste;
Where savage howls, as intermits the storm,
Wide o'er the wilderness resound from far,
And cross the gloom darts many a grisly form,
And fire-eyed visages horrific stare;
Hail, Goddess, friend of human race!
Hail! for thou oft thy suppliant's vow hast heard,
And oft with smiles indulgent chear'd
His doubting soul to peace.

I. 2.

Smit by thy rapture-beaming eye
Deep-flashing through the midnight of their mind,
The sable bands, combin'd
Where Fear's black banner bloats the troublous sky
Appal'd retire: Suspicion hides her head,
Nor dares th' obliquely-glaring eye to raise;
Despair with gorgon-figur'd veil o'erspread
Speeds to Cocytus' shriek-resounding maze;
Lo, startled at the heavenly ray
With haste unwonted Indolence upsprings,
And heaving lifts her leaden wings,
And sullen glides away:

I. 3.

Ten thousand forms by pining Fancy view'd
Dissolve. Above the sparkling flood
When Phaebus rears his awful brow,
From lengthening lawn and valley low
The troops of fen-nurst mists retire;
Along the plain the joyous swain
Eyes the green villages again,
And gold-illumin'd spire;
While on the sky's soft billows born
Floats the loose lays jovial measure;
And light along the fairy Pleasure,
Her green robes glittering to the morn,
Wantons on silken wing; and goblins all
Shrink to the deep dark vault, or hoary hall,
Or westward with impetuous flight
Shoot to the desart realms of their cogenial Night.