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Lines Suggested by the Third Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science

Held at Cambridge, in June, 1833. By the late William Sotheby ... With a Short Memoir of his Life

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xxxviii

ON THE DEATH OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

Proem.

I who erewhile with Hope's delightful strain
To Italy's bright sun and syren bay,
O'er the blue splendour of the midland main,
Accompanied the Minstrel on his way,
And preluded his glories yet to come,
The golden close of Fame's unclouded day.—
Ah! dire reverse! now breathe the funeral lay,
And strew these fading flowers on Scott's untimely tomb.
Mourn Abbotsford!
Mourn Thou! far famed retreat!
Where, picturing on the Tweed th'embattled crest,
The great Magician raised his Gothic seat!
Thou roof! whose hospitable rest
Welcomed the stranger guest,—

xxxix

And Thou armorial Hall!
Where the Bard, communing with chiefs of yore,
Hung their proud weapons on his storied wall:
Ye haunts! where once in happier hour
Th' Enchanter led me to his secret bow'r,
Receive my farewell word!
Ne'er may the Sun behold an alien Lord
Scott's sacred hearth profane!
But, evermore, a Scott there hold th'ancestral reign!
Harp of the North!—Death's ruthless stroke,
Thy chord that witch'd the world has broke,
And thou in Dryburgh's hallow'd gloom
Liest silent on the Minstrel's tomb;
Thy chord is broke, but ne'er shall die,
The echo of his minstrelsy.
Drawn by the magic of his rhyme,
Wild, romantic, bold, sublime,
Not Caledonia's sons alone,
The race of her poetic zone,
But in far Dryburgh's still retreat
The pilgrims of the world shall meet:

xl

And tell of Him whose gifted lay
Held o'er the heart resistless sway;
Of Him, the painter of the mind,
Of Him, whose portrait of mankind,
The lights, the shades, the mingled strife,
Each hue of many-colour'd life,
In bold similitude display'd
The living man that Nature made.
Scott, thou didst trance in deep delight
The summer day and winter night,
Yet, Bard! thy harp had higher pow'r
Than witcheries of the passing hour—
Its tone could, like a Seraph's lyre,
Draw from the breast each base desire;
Could rouse the passions, yet controul;
Could soothe, yet elevate the soul;
And to the world's tired slave impart
The freshness of thy feeling heart.
Yet though thy lay had power to bind,
In chain of sympathy, mankind,
And on the universe imprest
Each image glowing in thy breast;

xli

While o'er the world the spell was thrown
Scotland! his heart was thine alone.—
To thee the patriot passion given,
Thy rocks, thy lakes, his earthly heaven.
E'en when Italia's treacherous gale
Lured to the Syren bay his sail,
While round him breathed from every bower
The fragrance of the orange flower,
“Land of the mountain and the flood,”
Thy image still before him stood;
And when life's sunshine was o'ercast,
Ne'er from his dream that vision past.—
His prayer was heard—to view once more,
While Death yet paused, his haunts of yore,
Where Tweed his course romantic leads
Mid Abbotsford's delightful meads;
Or where the woods he planted spread
Their grateful shadow o'er his head.—
His prayer was heard—he sunk to rest
Beneath that roof where life was blest,—
Sunk in their arms whose ceaseless care
Watch'd o'er a Father's silver hair,

xlii

While his last look on them reposed,
And Death in peace his eyelid closed.—
He rests in peace; but Scotland! thou
Low bent in sorrow o'er his brow,—
Thou realm! that glories in his birth,
Now, o'er him, in his native earth
Raise in proud Dryburgh's hallow'd aisle
The Northern Bard's sepulchral pile.—
Yet not the sculptor's utmost art
That to the rock can life impart,
But Scott's imperishable page
Shall spread his name from age to age.
What needs it—where his relics lie—
The pomp of idle eulogy?
One word shall consecrate the stone,
Immortal Scott, thy name, alone!
W. S. Fair Mead Lodge, Epping Forest, 7 Nov. 1832.