SUPERSTITION.

Heart-chilling Superstition! thou canst glaze
Even Pity's eye with her own frozen tear.

Coleridge.

Superstition.

ODE TO SUPERSTITION.

BY ROGERS.

I. 1.

HENCE, to the realms of Night, dire Demon, hence!
Thy chain of adamant can bind

That little world, the human mind,
And sink its noblest powers to impotence.
Wake the lion's loudest roar,

Clot his shaggy mane with gore,

With flashing fury bid his eye-balls shine;
Meek is his savage sullen soul to thine!

Thy touch, thy deadening touch has steel'd the

breast,

Whence through her April-shower, soft Pity smiled;

Has closed the heart each godlike virtue bless'd, To all the silent pleadings of his child.

At thy command he plants the dagger deep, At thy command exults, though Nature bids him

weep!

I. 2.

When, with a frown that froze the peopled earth,
Thou dartedst thy huge head from high,
Night waved her banners o'er the sky,
And, brooding, gave her shapeless shadows birth.
Rocking on the billowy air,

Ha! what withering phantoms glare
As blows the blast with many a sudden swell,
At each dead pause what shrill-toned voices yell,
The sheeted spectre, rising from the tomb,
Points to the murderer's stab, and shudders by;
In every grove is felt a heavier gloom,
That veils its genius from the vulgar eye:
The spirit of the waters rides the storm,

And, thro' the mist, reveals the terrors of his form
I. 3.

O'er solid seas, where Winter reigns,
And holds each mountain-wave in chains,
The fur-clad savage, ere he guides his deer
By glistering star-light through the snow,
Breathes softly in her wondering ear
Each potent spell thou bad'st him know.
By thee inspired, on India's sands,
Full in the sun the Brahmin stands;
And, while the panting tigress hies
To quench her fever in the stream,
His spirit laughs in agonies,

Smit by the scorching of the noontide beam.
Mark who mounts the sacred pyre,

Blooming in her bridal vest :

She hurls the torch! she fans the fire!
To die is to be blest:

She clasps her lord to part no more,
And, sighing, sinks! but sinks to soar.
O'ershadowing Scotia's desert coast,
The Sisters sail in dusky state,
And, wrapt in clouds, in tempest tost,
Weave the airy web of Fate;

While the lone shepherd, near the shipless main, Sees o'er her hills advance the long-drawn funeral

train.

II. 1.

Thou spakest, and lo! a new creation glow'd.
Each unknown mass of living stone
Was clad in horrors not its own,

And at its base the trembling nations bow'd.
Giant Error, darkly grand,

Grasp'd the globe with iron hand.

Circled with seats of bliss, the Lord of Light
Saw prostrate worlds adore his golden height.
The statue, waking with immortal powers,
Springs from its parent earth, and shakes the
spheres ;

The indignant pyramid sublimely towers,
And braves the efforts of a host of years.

Sweet Music breathes her soul into the wind;

And bright-eyed Painting stamps the image of the