Wrapt in thy cloudy veil th' incestuous Queen*
Sigh'd the sad call her son and husband heard,
When once alone it broke the silent scene,

And he the wretch of Thebes no more appear'd.

Ο Fear, I know thee by my throbbing heart,
Thy withering power inspir'd each mournful line,
Tho' gentle pity claim her mingled part,

Yet all the thunders of the scene are thine!

* Jocasta.This is a little inaccurate : it was not Jocasta who called, nor was the call sighed out:-

Ην μεν σιωπη φθεγμα δ' εξαίφνης τινος
Θωυξεν αυτόν, ωςε πανίας ορθίας

Σλησαι φοβῳ δεισανίας εξαίφνης τρίχας
αυλον πολλα πολλακις Θεος,

Καλει

Ω ούλος ούλος Οιδίπες,κτλ. v. 1694.

there was silence for a while;

But sudden he was summon'd by a voice

That made our hairs all stand on end who heard it;

Some deity so loud and often called

• Thou, Edipus

The person who makes this report goes on to relate, that Edipus then ordered them all to depart except Theseus, who alone was to witness his end.

ως δ' απηλθομεν

Χρονῳ βραχει τραφενίες, εξαπείδομεν

Τον Ανδρα, τον μεν, εδαμε παρον

Ανακλα δ' αυτόν ομματων επισκιον

Χειρ' αντεχονία κρατος, ως δεινε τινος

Φοβε φανέντος, εδ' ανασχείν βλεπειν. ν. 1718.

At his command we came away;

When shortly after turning round to view,

ANTISTROPHE.

Thou who such weary lengths hast past,

Where wilt thou rest, mad Nymph, at last?
Say, wilt thou shroud in haunted cell,
Where gloomy Rape and Murder dwell?
Or in some hollow'd seat,

'Gainst which the big waves beat,

Hear drowning seamen's cries in tempest brought!
Dark Power, with shuddering meek submitted thought,
Be mine, to read the visions old,

Which thy awakening bards have told :
And, lest thou meet my blasted view,
Hold each strange tale devoutly true.
Ne'er be I found, by thee over-aw'd,
In that thrice-hallow'd eve abroad,
When ghosts, as cottage-maids believe,
Their pebbled beds permitted leave,
And goblins haunt from fire or fen,
Or mine, or flood, the walks of men!

Him we saw not, for he was gone; but Theseus
Stood with his hand o'ershadowing his eyes,

As from a fearful sight intolerable.

The mysterious fate of the British King Arthur is recorded in our old English ballad, with some circumstances that may remind us of this Grecian catastrophe.-See Percy's Ant. Songs, vol. 3.-C.

The eve which was hallowed, one might imagine, should rather be free from all these objects of fear, as Shakspeare represents it :

Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,

O thou whose spirit most possest
The sacred seat of Shakspeare's breast!
By all that from thy prophet broke,
In thy divine emotions spoke!
Hither again thy fury deal,

Teach me but once like him to feel:

His
cypress wreath my meed decree,
And I, O Fear, will dwell with thee!*

The bird of dawning singeth all night long :
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad,
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,

No fairy takes, no witch hath power to charm;

So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.-Hamlet, A. 1, S. L.

which have been thus translated ;

Et quotiês redeunt natalia tempora Christi
Nocturnas gallum usque ferunt cantare per horas:
Tum quoque & innocuas stellas tenebrasque salubres
Esse ferunt; illo nam tempore dira vetantur
Spectra suis exire locis, lemuresque latescunt,
Et sagis lædendi est interdicta potestas ;

Tanta est sacratæ reverentia credita nocti.-C.

*It is difficult to keep entirely separate the active and passive qualitie of allegorical personages: difficult to say whether such a thing as Fears should be the agent in inspiring, or the victim agitated by the passion. In this ode the latter idea prevails; for Fear appears in the character of a nymph pursued, like Dayden's Honoria, by the ravening brood of Fate. She is distracted by the ghastly train conjured up by Danger, and hunted through the world without being suffered to take repose: yet this idea is somewhat departed from, when the poet endeavours to propitiate Fear, by offering her, as a suitable abode, the cell where Rape and Murder dwelli

ODE TO SIMPLICITY.

O thou by Nature taught,

To breathe her genuine thought,

In numbers warmly pure, and sweetly strong:

Who first on mountains wild,

In Fancy, loveliest child,

Thy babe, and Pleasure's, nurs'd the powers of song!

Thou, who with hermit heart

Disdain'st the wealth of art,

And gauds, and pageant weeds, and trailing pall:

But com'st a decent maid,

In Attic robe array'd,

O chaste, unboastful nymph, to thee I call!

By all the honey'd store

On Hybla's thymy shore,

She then

or a cave whence she may hear the cries of drowning seamen. becomes the Power who delights in inflicting fear. But perhaps the reader is an enemy to his own gratification, who investigates the attributes of these shadowy beings, with too nice and curious an eye.-B.

Hybla is a mountain in Sicily; but this allegorical imagery of the honey store, the blooms, and murmurs of Hybla, alludes to the sweetness and beauty of the Attic poetry.-L.

By all her blooms, and mingled murmurs dear,
By her, whose love-lorn woe,

In evening musings slow,

Sooth'd sweetly sad Electra's poet's ear:

By old Cephisus deep,t

Who sproad his wavy sweep

In warbled wanderings round thy green retreat,

On whose enamel'd side,

When holy Freedom died,

No equal haunt allur'd thy future feet.

Milton, in his 8th sonnet, says

"The repeated air

Of sad Electra's poet, had the power

To save th' Athenian walls from ruin bare."

This refers to a story in Plutarch: that when Lysander had taken Athens, and intended to destroy that city, he was diverted from his purpose by bearing some lines sung from the Electra of Euripides. But Collins alludes to the Electra of Sophocles, and to the following passage in that drama.

Νηπιος όσις των οικίρως

Οιχομενων γονεων επιλαθεται
Εμε για τονοεσσ' άραρε φρενας
̓Α Ιτυν, αιεν Ιτυν γ' ολοφυρείαι
Ορνις αλυζομένη, Διος αγγελος.

v. 145.

Base is the wretch, and senseless, who forgets

The loss of parents barbarously slain;

But her I love, who still repeating calls

Iteus, dear Iteus, in her ceaseless grief,

The melancholy bird, Jove's messenger.-C.

+ Cephisus is the name of a river in Beotia, and of another which runs near Athens. Vid. Cellar. Geo. L 2, C 13.-C. 1