"Be every youth like royal Abbas mov'd, "And every Georgian maid like Abra lov'd!" ECLOGUE IV. AGIB AND SECANDER; OR, THE FUGITIVES. Scene, A Mountain in Circassia. Time, Midnight. IN fair Circassia, where, to love inclin❜d, Each swain was blest, for every maid was kind; At that still hour when awful midnight reigns, And none but wretches haunt the twilight plains; What time the moon had hung her lamp on high, And past in radiance thro' the cloudless sky, Sad o'er the dews two brother shepherds fled, Where wild'ring Fear and desp'rate Sorrow led: Fast as they prest their flight behind them lay Wild ravag'd plains, and valleys stole away. Along the mountain's bending sides they ran, Till, faint and weak, Secander thus began: Secan. O stay thee, Agib! for my feet deny, No longer friendly to my life, to fly. Friend of my heart! O turn thee and survey, Trace our sad flight through all its length of way! And first review that long-extended plain, Agib. Weak as thou art, yet, hapless! must thou, know The toils of flight, or some severer woe. Still as I haste the Tartar shouts behind, And shrieks and sorrows load the sadd'ning wind: He blasts our harvests and deforms our land. Secan. Unhappy land! whose blessings tempt the sword; In vain, unheard, thou call'st thy Persian Lord! No wars alarm him, and no fears annoy. Agib. Yet these green hills in summer's sultry heat Have lent the monarch oft a cool retreat. Sweet to the sight is Zabran's flow'ry plain, By Sargis' banks or Irwan's shady grove; Secan. In vain Circassia boasts her spicy groves, Their eyes' blue languish, and their golden hair : Those eyes in tears their fruitless grief must send; Those hairs the Tartar's cruel hands shall rend. Agib. Ye Georgian Swains! that piteous learn from far Circassia's ruin and the waste of war, Some weightier arms than crooks and staffs prepare By lust incited, or by malice led, The villain Arab! as he prowls for prey, Oft marks with blood and wasting flames the way; Yet none so cruel as the Tartar foe, To death inur'd, and nurst in scenes of woe. He said; when loud along the vale was heard A shriller shriek, and nearer fires appear'd; Th' affrighted shepherds thro' the dews of night Wide o'er the moon-light hills renew'd their flight. 38 ODES DESCRIPTIVE AND ALLEGORICAL. ODE I. TO PITY. O THOU! the friend of man, assign'd When first Distress, with dagger keen, By Pella's bard, a magic name! By all the griefs his thought could frame, Long, Pity! let the nations view Thy sky-worn robes of tend'rest blue, And eyes of dewy light. But wherefore need I wander wide Deserted stream and mute! |