The Poetical Works of William Collins/To Fear

by William Collins (1721-1759)

ODE TO FEAR.

Thou, to whom the world unknown,
With all its shadowy shapes, is shown;
Who seest, appall'd, the unreal scene,
While Fancy lifts the veil between:
Ah Fear! ah frantic Fear! 5
I see, I see thee near.
I know thy hurried step, thy haggard eye!
Like thee I start; like thee disorder'd fly.
For, lo, what monsters in thy train appear!
Danger, whose limbs of giant mould 10
What mortal eye can fix'd behold?
Who stalks his round, an hideous form,
Howling amidst the midnight storm;
Or throws him on the ridgy steep
Of some loose hanging rock to sleep: 15
And with him thousand phantoms join'd,
Who prompt to deeds accursed the mind:
And those, the fiends, who, near allied,
O'er Nature's wounds, and wrecks, preside;
Whilst Vengeance, in the lurid air, 20
Lifts her red arm, exposed and bare:
On whom that ravening^[1] brood of Fate,
Who lap the blood of sorrow, wait:
Who, Fear, this ghastly train can see,
And look not madly wild, like thee? 25

EPODE.
In earliest Greece, to thee, with partial choice,
The grief-full Muse addrest her infant tongue;
The maids and matrons, on her awful voice,
Silent and pale, in wild amazement hung.

Yet he, the bard^[2] who first invoked thy name, 30
Disdain'd in Marathon its power to feel:
For not alone he nursed the poet's flame,
But reach'd from Virtue's hand the patriot's steel.

But who is he whom later garlands grace,
Who left a while o'er Hybla's dews to rove, 35
With trembling eyes thy dreary steps to trace,
Where thou and furies shared the baleful grove?

Wrapt in thy cloudy veil, the incestuous^[3] queen
Sigh'd the sad call^[4] her son and husband heard,
When once alone it broke the silent scene, 40
And he the wretch of Thebes no more appear'd.

O Fear, I know thee by my throbbing heart:
Thy withering power inspired each mournful line:
Though gentle Pity claim her mingled part,
Yet all the thunders of the scene are thine! 45

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, 50
'Gainst which the big waves beat,
Hear drowning seamen's cries, in tempests brought?
Dark power, with shuddering meek submitted thought,
Be mine to read the visions old
Which thy awakening bards have told: 55
And, lest thou meet my blasted view,
Hold each strange tale devoutly true;
Ne'er be I found, by thee o'erawed,
In that thrice hallow'd eve, abroad,
When ghosts, as cottage maids believe, 60
Their pebbled beds permitted leave;
And goblins haunt, from fire, or fen,
Or mine, or flood, the walks of men!

O thou, whose spirit most possess'd
The sacred seat of Shakespeare's breast! 60
By 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, 70
And I, O Fear, will dwell with thee!

1. Alluding to the Κύνας ἄφυκτους of Sophocles. See the Electra.
2. Æschylus.
3. Jocasta.
4. ———οὐδ᾽ ἔτ᾽ ὠρώρει βοή,
   Ἠν μὲν σιωπή· φθέγμα δ᾽ ἐξαίφνης τινὸς
   θώϋξεν αὐτόν, ὥστε πάντας ὀρθίας
   Στῆσαι φόβω δείσαντας ἐξαίφνης τρίχας.
   See the OEdip. Colon. of Sophocles.