Ode Against Despair

Farewell thou dimpled cherub Joy, Thou rose-crown'd, ever-smiling boy, Wont thy sister Hope to lead To dance along the primrose mead! No more, berest of happy hours, I seek thy lute-resounding bowers, But to yon ruin'd tower repair, To meet the God of groans, Despair; Who, on that ivy-darken'd ground, Still takes at eve his silent round, Or sits yon new-made grave beside, Where lies a frantic Suicide: While labouring sighs my heart-strings break, Thus to the sullen Power I speak:

" Haste, with thy poison'd dagger, haste, " To pierce this sorrow-laden breast; " Or lead me at the dead of night, " To some sea-beat mountain's height, " Whence with headlong haste I'll leap " To the dark bosom of the deep; " Or shew me far from human eye, " Some cave to muse in, starve, and die, " No weeping friend or brother near, " My last fond, faultering words to hear?"

'Twas thus with weight of woes opprest, I sought to ease my bruised breast: When straight more gloomy grew the shade, And lo! a tall majestic maid! Her limbs, not delicately fair, Robust, and of a martial air; She bore of steel a polish'd shield, Where highly-sculptur'd I beheld Th' Athenian martyr smiling stand, The baleful goblet in his hand; Sparkled her eyes with lively flame, And Patience was the seraph's name; Sternly she look'd, and stern began— " Thy sorrows cease, complaining man, " Rouse thy weak soul, appease thy moan, " Soon are the clouds of sadness gone; " Tho' now in Grief's dark groves you walk, " Where griesly fiends around you stalk, " Beyond, a blissful city lies, " Far from whose gates each anguish flies: " Take thou this shield, which once of yore " Ulysses and Alcides wore, " And which in later days I gave " To Regulus and Raleigh brave; " In exile or in dungeon drear " Their mighty minds could banish fear; " Thy heart no tenfold woes shall feel, " 'Twas Virtue temper'd the rough steel, " And, by her heavenly fingers wrought, " To me the precious present brought."