ODE TO TRAGEDY.
Hail, sister of the sable stole!
’Tis thine to meliorate the soul,
To draw the tender tear from pity’s eye,
While suff’ring virtue heaves the length’ning sigh,
And groans beneath oppression’s rod;
Or filial duty weeps a parent’s woe;
Pale constancy hangs o’er her urn,
Distracted love laments, from all his wishes torn.
Oh, wise vicissitudes of fate below!
To humble haughty man, and lift the soul to God.
The frantic eye, the hurrying pace,
Th’ impressive horrors of thy face,
For me have more sublime delights
Than all thy laughing sisters airy flights:
When Shakespeare bears the soul along
In all the native majesty of song,
Now fires with rage, now chills with fear,
Now melts the icy breast with pity’s tear:
Alike in all, oh, bard sublime!
Above the rankling rage of death and time.
But ah! what hideous forms around thee throng!
Can these instill the moral song?
See Virtue sinks beneath the villain’s hand!
Successful Murder hails his bloody band!
Lo! wild Despair’s relentless knife
High rais’d against his sacred life!
Blind Jealousy the poisoned drug prepares!
’Till horror’s starting eye-ball glares,
And squallid Terror flies before,
While reckless Fury rushes on,
His poniard red with reeking gore,
Warm from the heart in which he liv’d alone!
’Tis past; still virtue claims thy care,
The fev’rish reign of vice soon melts in air.
For, lo! another train succeeds,
Avengers of atrocious deeds!
See purple Guilt, with look aghast,
By torturing passions vexed sore,
Possess’d his soul with haggard fear,
As conscience still to virtue dear
Holds up a gloomy picture of the past,
And keen remorse still bids him “sleep no more,”
Till tears of forc’d contrition ceaseless flow,
And furies hurl him to the shades below.
Oh goddess of the tear-swoln eye!
Be sacred Justice ever nigh,
In all her grizly horrors clad!
To tell the tyrant trembling on his throne
He lives not for himself alone.
In vain he ’scapes from human law;
Her airy ministers still haunt the bad,
Sink deep into his soul, and keep him still in awe.
Sweet Muse! thy lessons teach the soul
The wayward passions to controul;
By heaven implanted they for noblest ends,
When reason’s sober lamp attends,
Afar from error’s dark and devious way,
To guide our steps to truth’s effulgent day.
Ah foolish man! why quit her cheering ray?
The tranquil pleasure’s her’s that never cloy
With her alone dwells virtue, happiness, and joy.