Ode to Tragedy

O HALLOW'D source of fancy'd woe,
Around thy shrine the streams that flow,
From Pity's sacred source arise,
Now lost in horror, chill'd we gaze,
And see thy hand the dagger raise;
The fated victim dies!

Where the pale body lifeless lies,
Sweet Pity yields her throbbing sighs,
And though deserving of the doom,
Yet falls he not without a tear,
Which, shed by Virtue o'er his bier,
Bids hope dispel the gloom.

When first the Muse in Grecia sung,
To comic strains her shell she strung,
Then pleas'd alone with shepherd lays;
But O! when Genius pour'd her light
Along the gloom of early night,
To thee belongs the praise.

By ev'ry tragic bard of old,
Of whom th' historic page hath told;
By every dear departed shade,
By mighty Shakspeare's honour'd dust,
And by thy Otway's laurel'd bust;
Descend to earth, sweet maid.

Still Britons feel thy glowing rage,
Illum'd by Shakespeare's magic page;
Still o'er thy Otway's verse we mourn
When impious Cawdor's guilty queen
With murder stains the horrid scene.
O! how our bosoms burn.

When fair Monimia weeping pleads,
And when her hapless husband bleeds,
Whilst tears bedim her radiant eyes,
Sweet Pity's self descending there,
Attempts to soothe the hopeless fair
With sympathetic sighs.

When, catching frenzy from thy page,
Immortal Siddons treads the stage,
The Fairies stern awhile refrain,
A while their scorpion lust restrain,
And, pleas'd, behold the scene of woe.
Uncertain, if our tears and sighs,
From true, or fancied ills arise;
But, ah! the sweet delusion o'er,
Again they steep their snakes in gore,
And bid our sorrows flow.