Ode To Fancy Poem by John Anster

Oh Fancy, hither bend thy flight,
Hither steer thy car of light,
Tho' its rainbow colours flee
Ere they have shone a moment on my sight;
Come, Fancy, come, and bring with thee
The light--wing'd forms of air, that glance
Upon the Poet's dizzy view,
Which, when he waketh from his rapturous trance,
No effort can renew,
No tongue their beauty can declare,
No thought conceive how wond'rous fair;
Like the light clouds, whose folds are drest

With varying tints on Summer eve,
Their hues are chang'd, before the breast
Distinctly can receive
A settled thought of what they were,
She knows alone that they were fair!

Oh Fancy, let such forms delight
Thy votary's longing eye;
Or if they may not meet my sight,
Come THOU, tho' all the winds of night
Around thy chariot fly;
Come, tho' dark Horrour come with thee,
And the pale fiend distracted Fear
Unfold to my congealing ear
His tale of mystery!
Yes, I will listen, while his breath
Tells of the dagger, on whose blade
Still gleams the red red mark of Death,
Tho' long the day since Murder laid
Upon the deadly dirk his desperate grasp,
And heard, delighted heard, his victim's last faint gasp,
And gaz'd with unaverted eye
On the last writhe of agony,
While with unshivering hand he prest
His dagger in the sleeper's breast;
Yes, I will hark, tho' Fear may tell
In piercing tone the tales of Hell,
Will listen, Fancy, if thy faintest gleam
Tinge the dark and dreadful theme!

Fancy, with thee I love to stray,
With thee would seek the dungeon's gloom,
Renounce for aye the visions gay
That Pleasure's tints illume;
Would listen to the owlet's cry,
Would hear the winds of Winter sigh
Amid the leafless trees;
Would hark the Spirit shrilly scream,
Would view the meteor's boding beam,
Would court thy most terrific dream,
Till my heart's blood did freeze;
Would lie the tremulous avalanche beneath,
Where the least pant is instant death,
If thy rich visions swam before my eye;
Would launch the light skiff, where the wild waves sweep
Down Niagara's dizzying steep,
If thy angelic form was nigh,
If with thy hues the mountain--snow was bright,
If thou didst tinge the wave with thy rich lines of light.

But sweeter, Fancy, is the trance,
When thy hues of splendour glance
On the dim and aching eye
That weeps in sad reality,
Thy visions cheer the hapless breast,
That, braving in unequal strife
The dark and stormy sea of life,
Sighs for the haven of its rest;
And, as the star in heaven's blue cope
Sheds joy upon the sailor's soul,
So dost thou dart a ray of hope
Upon the mourner's heart;
So does thy gentle art
The power of misery controul!
Tho' fortune o'er the scene may throw
The wintry cloud of want and woe,
Yet thou, Enchantress, thou canst fling
The tints of visionary spring
Upon thy votary's sight,
And paint in hues divinely bright
An after season of delight.

Oh Fancy, tho' thy cup contain
The draught of woe, and piercing pain,
Tho' oft thy flattering magic hand
Depict the future fair,
When suddenly the figures bland
Dissolve away in air;
Tho', when the Demon of Despair
Tears the pain'd breast with pointed fang,
Thou, Fancy, givest an added pang
To the keen wound of care,
Tho' thou bid the blood--streaked eye
Redden in feverish agony,
Yet is the man thy woes oppress
Gifted with heighten'd happiness;
For him, in rapture's hour, the heart
Bounds with a livelier measure;
To him Creation's stores impart
A grander sense of pleasure!

The traveller thus, in Arab--sands,
Whose lips are parch'd, whose limbs are faint,
Whose troubled thoughts for ever paint
The tyger's fangs, the Bedouin bands,
Whose camel now with faltering pace
Strives the burning path to trace,
See in that wanderer's looks exprest
The hopeless anguish of his breast;
--But now! mark! mark that start of joy,
Mark how he strains his swollen eye;
He sees yon distant spot, so green,
Shine circled with the desert sea,
Mark! mark empictur'd in his mien
The flush of hope, of extasy;
The fall, and flash of waters near
Delight the heart, and eye, and ear!
Now has his weary journey ceast,
And now he spreads his simple feast,
And, sheltered by the o'erarching palm,
Enjoys the spot so sweet, so calm!
Was ever bliss thus perfect known
To him for whom delight alone
Had spread the silken couch of ease,
And fann'd his breast with pleasure's breeze?
Thus to the man, inur'd to smart
With feelings by the throng unfelt,
For him with deeper joy the heart
In rapture's hour will melt,
Will view a prospect hid from vulgar sight,
The Eden--bower of pure and unalloy'd delight!

But chiefly on the Poet's mind
Thine influence is shed,
His eye expatiates unconfin'd
Upon thy vast expanse,
He views with kindling glance
Thy peopled scenes before him spread!
Then Fancy bid my page to gleam
With some faint colouring from thy beam;
To thee the Poet's hopes belong,
Bid then thy light illume my song!
I call thee by thy Collins' rage,
By thy Warton's gothic page,
By thy Spenser's faerie slumbers,
By thy Shakespeare's witching numbers;
By thy Southey's grander lay,
Shed, Fancy, shed thy joyous ray!
Or move me far from Mirth's mad folly
To the haunts of Melancholy;
There shall I view the air around
Haunted by many a spectral form,
Shall hear the boding spirit sound
Amid the howlings of the storm;
Shall in the night--bird's shriek descry
The mystic tones of prophecy,
And, as the meteor's beams appal,
Behold the coming funeral,
Or view the ancient chieftain's lance
With momentary lustre glance,
As sitting in his cloudy car
He thinks upon his days of war!

Or, gazing on the moon's pale light,
Whose mild and melancholy ray
Gives softer, and more sweet delight
Than the majestic orb of Day,
I then will deem that, while she glows
For base and thankless Man,
She mourns the vices and the woes,
That dim his little span;
Or think mayhap her light is shed
Upon the moat's moss cover'd bed,
To gild the feasts of harmless fays,
Who sport beneath the holy blaze;
Then shall the thoughts of other times
Rouse me to try adventurous rhymes,
And to the harp's deep music chaunt
The story of some old romaunt;
Thus my rapt soul, with gothic glories fraught,
In Fancy's bower shall muse, and court Poetic Thought.