The Poetical Remains of the late Dr. John Leyden ::

My native stream, my native vale,
And you, green meads of Teviotdale,
That after absence long I view!
Your bleakest scenes, that rise around,
Assume the tints of fairy ground,
And infancy revive anew.

Thrice blest the days I here have seen,
When light I trac'd that margin green,
Blithe as the linnet on the spray;
And thought the days would ever last
As gay and cheerful as the past;—
The sunshine of a summer's day.

116

Fair visions, innocently sweet!
Though soon you pass'd on viewless feet,
And vanish'd to return no more;
Still, when this anxious breast shall grieve,
You shall my pensive heart relieve,
And every former joy restore.

When first around mine infant head
Delusive dreams their visions shed,
To soften or to soothe the soul;
In every scene, with glad surprise,
I saw my native groves arise,
And Teviot's crystal waters roll.

And when religion rais'd my view
Beyond this concave's azure blue,
Where flowers of fairer lustre blow,
Where Eden's groves again shall bloom,
Beyond the desart of the tomb,
And living streams for ever flow,—

The groves of soft celestial dye
Were such as oft had met mine eye,
Expanding green on Teviot's side;
The living stream, whose pearly wave
In fancy's eye appear'd to lave,
Resembled Teviot's limpid tide.

117

When first each joy that childhood yields
I left, and saw my native fields
At distance fading dark and blue,
As if my feet had gone astray
In some lone desart's pathless way,
I turn'd, my distant home to view.

Now tir'd of folly's fluttering breed,
And scenes where oft the heart must bleed,
Where every joy is mix'd with pain;
Back to this lonely green retreat,
Which Infancy has render'd sweet,
I guide my wandering steps again.

And now, when rosy sun-beams lie
In thin streaks o'er the eastern sky,
Beside my native stream I rove;
When the gray sea of fading light
Ebbs gradual down the western height,
I softly trace my native grove.

When forth at morn the heifers go,
And fill the fields with plaintive low,
Re-echoed by their young confin'd;
When sun-beams wake the slumbering breeze,
And light the dew-drops on the trees,
Beside the stream I lie reclin'd,

118

And view the water-spiders glide
Along the smooth and level tide,
Which, printless, yields not as they pass;
While still their slender frisky feet
Scarce seem with tiny step to meet
The surface blue and clear as glass.

Beside the twisted hazel bush
I love to sit, and hear the thrush,
Where cluster'd nuts around me spring;
While from a thousand mellow throats
High thrill the gently-trembling notes,
And winding woodland echoes ring.

The shadow of my native grove,
And wavy streaks of light I love,
When brightest glows the eye of day;
And shelter'd from the noon-tide beam,
I pensive muse beside the stream,
Or by the pebbled channel stray.

Where little playful eddies wind,
The banks with silvery foam are lin'd,
Untainted as the mountain-snow;
And round the rock, incrusted white,
The rippling waves in murmurs light
Reply to gales that whispering blow.

119

I love the riv'let's stilly chime,
That marks the ceaseless lapse of time,
And seems in fancy's ear to say—
“A few short suns, and thou no more
Shalt linger on thy parent shore,
But like the foam-streak pass away.”—

Dear fields, in vivid green array'd!
When every tint at last shall fade
In death's funereal cheerless hue,
As sinks the latest fainting beam
Of light that on mine eyes shall gleam,
Still shall I turn your scenes to view.

University of Virginia Library

ODE, TO THE SCENES OF INFANCY.

WRITTEN IN 1801.