The Poetical Works of Thomas Pringle :: :: University of Virginia Library

VOUCHSAFE IN WORTH THIS SMALL GUIFT TO RECEAUE, WHICH IN YOUR HANDS AS LOWLYE PLEDGE I LEAUE OF PURPOSED THEME, IN SCOTIA'S PASTORAL GUISE; IF SO THE MUSE SHALL E'ER THE DREAMES FULFILL WITH WHICH SHE ERST HATH CHARMD MY TRANCED EYES: NOT THAT MY LINES MAY FOR SUCH THEMES SUFFICE; FOR THEREUNTO DOTH NEED A GOLDEN QUILL, AND SILUER LEAUES, THEM RIGHTLY TO DEUISE; BUT TO MAKE HUMBLE PRESENT OF GOOD WILL; WHICH, WHEN AS TIMELY MEANES IT PURCHASE MAY, IN AMPLER WISE ITSELFE WILL FORTH DISPLAY.

[_]

(Altered from Spenser.)

Edinburgh, January 5th, 1819.

117

THE AUTUMNAL EXCURSION.

(A POETICAL EPISTLE TO A FRIEND.)

Hic inter flumina nota
Et fontes sacros------

Dear Story, while the southern breeze
Floats, fragrant, from the upland leas,
Whispering of Autumn's mellow spoils,
And jovial sports and grateful toils,—
Awakening in the softened breast
Regrets and wishes long supprest,—
O, come with me once more to hail
The scented heath, the sheafy vale,
The hills and streams of Teviotdale.
—'Tis but a parting pilgrimage,
To save, from Time's destroying rage,
And changeful Fortune's withering blast,
The pictured relics of the Past.

Then come, dear Comrade!—welcome still
In every change of good or ill;
Whom young affection's wishes claim,
And friendship ever finds the same;
Awake, with all thy flow of mind,
With fancy bright and feelings kind,
And tune with me the rambling lay,
To cheer us on our mountain way.

118

Say, shall we wander where the swain,
Bent o'er his staff, surveys the plain,
With ruddy cheek and locks of grey,
Like patriarch of the olden day?—
Around him ply the reaper band,
With lightsome heart and eager hand:
And mirth and music cheer the toil;
While sheaves that stud the russet soil,
And sickles gleaming in the sun,
Tell, jocund Autumn is begun.

I love the blithesome harvest morn,
Where Ceres pours her plenteous horn:
The hind's hoarse cry from loaded car,
The voice of laughter from afar,
The placid master's sober joy,
The frolic of the thoughtless boy;
Cold is the heart when scenes like these
Have lost their genial power to please.
But yet, my friend, there is an hour
(Oft has thy bosom owned its power)
When the full heart, in pensive tone,
Sighs for a scene more wild and lone.
Oh then, more sweet on Scotland's shore
The beetling cliff, the breaker's roar,
The moorland waste, where all is still
Save wheeling plover's whistle shrill,—
More sweet the seat by ancient stone
Or tree with lichens overgrown,—
Than richest bower that Autumn yields
'Midst merry England's cultured fields.

Then, let our pilgrim footsteps seek
Old Cheviot's pathless mossy peak;

119

For there the Mountain Spirit still
Lingers around the lonely hill,
To guard his wizard grottoes hoar
Where Cimbrian sages dwelt of yore;
Or, shrouded in his robes of mist,
Ascends the mountain's shaggy breast,
To seize his fearful seat—upon
The elf-enchanted Hanging Stone,

The Hanging-Stone is a crag on the northern brow of Cheviot, impending over a rocky chasm called Hell's Hole, with which some ancient, but indistinct, popular traditions are associated.

And count the kindred streams that stray
Through the broad regions of his sway:—
Fair sister streams, that wend afar
By rushy mead or rocky scaur,
Now hidden by the clustering brake,
Now lost amid the mountain lake,
Now clasping, with protective sweep,
Some mouldering castle's moated steep;
Till issuing from the uplands brown,
Fair rolls each flood by tower and town;
The hills recede, and on the sight
Swell the bold rivers broad and bright.

The eye—the fancy almost fails
To trace them through their thousand vales,
Winding these Border hills among,
(The boast of chivalry and song,)
From Bowmont's banks of softest green

Beaumont or Bowmont Water is a sequestered pastoral stream in the south-eastern extremity of Roxburghshire, which, after crossing the English border, joins the river Till near Flodden Field.

The friend to whom the “Autumnal Excursion” is addressed, (that poem being originally designed as a mere rhyming epistle, without any view to publication,) is a native of the Vale of Beaumont. The author and he were born in adjoining parishes, amid the secluded glens of Cheviot, and were inscparable associates in early youth; and, though our pursuits in maturer life have been widely different, it is not the less pleasing to look back over a twenty years' friendship, which no selfish jealousy has ever disturbed, or coldness interrupted, or even long separation impaired. My old companion and valued friend will, I trust, excuse this slight expression of affectionate remembrance, and forgive me for adding that the R--- S--- of my little poem, though not the Poet Laureate of England, (as the Quarterly Review once supposed,) is a person who fears God, and loves mankind not less sincerely—namely, the Rev. Robert Story, minister of Roseneath.

To the rude verge of dark Lochskene.

Lochskene is a wild mountain lake at the head of Moffat Water, on the borders of Dumfriesshire.

—'Tis a heart-stirring sight to view,
Far to the westward stretching blue,
That frontier ridge, which erst defied
The invader's march, or quelled his pride;
The bloody field, for many an age,
Of rival nations' wasteful rage;
In later times a refuge given
To outlaws in the cause of Heaven.

The persccuted covenanters, when outlawed and hunted down in the evil times of Charles II. and James II., often found a temporary refuge among the secluded moorland recesses of the Border mountains.

120

Far inland, where the mountain crest
O'erlooks the waters of the west,
And 'mid the moorland wilderness,
Dark moss-cleughs form a drear recess,
Curtained with ceaseless mists, which feed
The sources of the Clyde and Tweed;
There, injured Scotland's patriot band
For Faith and Freedom made their stand;
When traitor Kings, who basely sold
Their country's fame for Gallic gold,—
Too abject o'er the free to reign,—
Warned by a Father's fate in vain,—
In bigot frenzy trampled down
The race to whom they owed their crown.—
There, worthy of his masters, came
The despots' champion, Bloody Graham,

The celebrated James Graham, of Claverhouse, afterwards created Viscount Dundee, was a man of eminent talent and audacious enterprise; and these qualities have procured him, even in our own times, zealous eulogists, or at least very partial apologists.

To stain for aye a warrior's sword,
And lead a fierce though fawning horde,
The human bloodhounds of the earth
To hunt the peasant from his hearth!
—Tyrants! could not misfortune teach
That man had rights beyond your reach!
Thought ye the torture and the stake
Could that intrepid spirit break,
Which even in woman's breast withstood
The terrors of the fire and flood!—

Ay!—though the sceptic's tongue deride
Those martyrs who for conscience died;
Though modish history blight their fame,
And sneering courtiers hoot the name
Of men who dared alone be free
Amidst a nation's slavery;
Yet long for them the poet's lyre
Shall breathe its notes of heavenly fire;

121

Their names shall nerve the patriot's hand
Uprear'd to save a sinking land;
And piety shall learn to burn
With holier transport o'er their urn!—

But now, all sterner thoughts forgot,
Peace broods upon the peasant's cot;
And if tradition still prolongs
The memory of his father's wrongs,
'Tis blent with grateful thoughts that borrow
A blessing from departed sorrow.

How lovely seems the simple vale
Where lives our sires' heroic tale!
Where each wild pass and wandering flood
Was hallowed by the patriot's blood;
And the cold cavern once his tent,
Is now his deathless monument,—
Rehearsing, to the kindling thought,
What faith inspired and valour wrought!
—Oh, ne'er shall he whose ardent prime
Was fostered in the freeman's clime,
Though doomed to seek a distant strand,
Forget his glorious native land—
Forget these storied hills and streams,
Scenes of his youth's enthusiast dreams!
Sequestered haunts—so still—so fair—
That Holy Faith might worship there,
And Error weep away her stains,
And dark Remorse forget his pains;
And Homeless hearts, by fortune tost
Or early hopeless passion crost,
Regain the peace they long had lost!

122

Then, let us roam that lovely land,
By Teviot's lone, historic strand
By sylvan Yair, by Ettrick's glens,
By haunted Yarrow's ‘dowie dens;’
Till, with far-circling steps we hail
Thy native Bowmont's broomy dale,
And reach my boyhood's birchen bowers
'Mong Cayle's fair cottages and towers.

The Cayla, or Cale-Water, is one of the many subsidiary branches of the river Teviot. Arising in the midst of the Cheviot mountains, it waters a pleasant pastoral valley, remote from all resorts of commerce or provincial bustle. Its name is conjectured by Chalmers, the author of Caledonia, to have been derived from the woody coverts which in ancient times covered its banks. Celli, in the British language, signifying a grove; and Coille, in the Gaelic, a wood.

Sweet Cayle! like voice of years gone by,
I hear thy mountain melody;
It comes with long-forgotten dreams
Once cherished by thy pastoral streams;
And sings of school-boy rambles free,
And heart-felt young hilarity!
I see the mouldering turrets hoar
Dim gleaming on thy woodland shore,
Where oft, afar from vulgar eye,
I loved at summer tide to lie;
Abandoned to the witching sway
Of some old bard's heroic lay;
Or poring o'er the immortal story
Of Roman and of Grecian glory.
But aye one minstrel charmed me more
Than all I learned of classic lore,
Or war and beauty gaily blent
In pomp of knightly tournament,—
Even he, in rustic verse, who told
Of Scotland's champion—Wallace bold—

The old Scottish minstrel, commonly called Blind Harry.

Of Scotland's ancient “luve and lee,”
And Southrons' cruel treachery!
—And oft I conned that Harper's page
With old hereditary rage,
Till I have wept, in bitter mood,
That now no more, in English blood,

123

My country's falchion might atone
The warrior's fall and widow's moan!
—Or 'neath the oak's broad-bending shade,
With half-shut eye-lids musing laid,
(Weaving in fancy's tissue strange
The shapeless visions of revenge!)
I conjured back the past again—
The marshalled bands; the battle plain;
The Border slogan's pealing shout;
The shock, the tumult, and the rout;
Victorious Scotland's bugle blast;
And charging knights that hurry past;
Till down the dim-withdrawing vale
I seemed to see their glancing mail,
And hear the fleet barb's furious tramp
Re-echoed from yon ancient camp.

But chief, when summer Twilight mild
Drew her dim curtain o'er the wild,
I loved beside that ruin grey
To watch the dying gleam of day.
And though, perchance, with secret dread,
I heard the bat flit round my head,
While winds that waved the long lank grass
With sound unearthly seemed to pass,
Yet with a pleasing horror fell
Upon my heart the thrilling spell;
For all that met the ear or eye
Breathed such serene tranquillity,
I deemed nought evil might intrude
Within the saintly solitude.
—Still vivid memory can recall
The figure of each shattered wall;
The aged trees, all hoar with moss,
Low-bending o'er the circling fosse;

124

The rushing of the mountain flood;
The ring-doves cooing in the wood;
The rooks that o'er the turrets sail;
The lonely curlew's distant wail;
The flocks that high on Hounam rest;
The glories of the glowing west.

And, tinged with that departing sun,
To Fancy's eye arises dun
Lone Blaiklaw, on whose trenchèd brow,
Yet unprofaned by ruthless plough,
The shaggy gorse and brown heath wave
O'er many a nameless warrior's grave.
—Yon ridge, of yore, which wide and far
Gleam'd like the wakeful Eye of War,
And oft, with warning flame and smoke,
Ten thousand spears to battle woke,
Now down each subject glen descries
Blue wreaths from quiet hamlets rise,
To where, soft-fading on the eye,
Tweed's cultured banks in beauty lie,
Wide waving with a flood of grain,
From Eildon to the eastern main.
—Oft from yon height I loved to mark,
Soon as the morning roused the lark,
And woodlands raised their raptured hymn,
That land of glory spreading dim;
While slowly up the awakening dale
The mists withdrew their fleecy veil,
And tower, and wood, and winding stream,
Were brightening in the orient beam.
—Yet where the westward shadows fell,
My eye with fonder gaze would dwell;
Though wild the view, and brown and bare,—
Nor castled halls, nor hamlets fair,
Nor range of sheltering woods, were there—

125

Nor river's sweeping pride between,
To give expression to the scene.
There stood a simple home,—where swells
The meadow sward to moory fells,—
A rustic dwelling, thatched and warm,
Such as might suit the upland farm.
A honeysuckle clasped the sash,
Half shaded by the giant ash:
And there the wall-spread apple-tree
Gave its white blossoms to the bee,
Beside the hop-bower's twisted shade
Where age reclined and childhood played.
Below, the silvery willows shook
Their tresses o'er a rambling brook,
That gambolled 'mong its banks of broom,
Till lost in Lerdan's haunted gloom,
Methinks I hear that streamlet's din
Where straggling alders screen the linn,
Gurgling into its fairy pool,
With pebbled bottom clear and cool.
Full oft, in boyhood, from its marge
I loved to launch my mimic barge,
And laughed to see it deftly sail;
While faithful Chevy wagged his tail,
And, moved with sympathetic glee,
Would bounce and bark impatiently,
Until I bade him plunge and swim
To bring it dripping to the brim.

From Teviot's richer dales remote
The traveller's glance would scarcely note
That simple scene,—or there espy
Aught to detain his wandering eye:
But partial memory pictures still
Each bush and stone that specked the hill;

126

The braes with broom and copsewood green;
The rocky knolls that rose between;
The fern that fringed each fairy nook;
The mottled mead; the mazy brook,
That, underneath its ozier shade,
Still to the wild its music made.

Beside that brook, among the hay,
I see an elfin band at play;
Blithe swinging on the green-wood bough;
Or guiding mimic wain and plough:
Intent a summer booth to build;
Or tilling each his tiny field:
Or, proudly ranged in martial rank,
In rival bands upon the bank,
With rushy helm and sword of sedge,
A bloodless Border War to wage.

Anon, with lapse of circling years,
In other guisc that group appears,
As childhood's gamesome mood gives place
To manly thought and maiden grace.
Beneath yon rock with lichens hoar,
Of fabled Elves the haunt of yore,
They sit beside the Fairy's Spring.
I hear the low winds whispering
The mournful ballad's simple strain;
Or breathing flute awakes again
The echoes of each sylvan grot,
With many a sweetly-melting note.

Or, from the chambers of the north,
Comes Winter with his tempests forth;
Athwart the shivering glebe to fling
The blinding snow-drift from his wing;

127

Shrouding, with many a fleecy fold,
The bosky dell and battle wold;
While, banished from his half-ploughed field
The hind essays the flail to wield;
And o'er the hills, the perilous road
Alone by shepherd's foot is trod,
Who gathers on the furzy heath,
His flocks dug from the smothering wreath:—
Then, was it joy indeed to meet
With long-loved friends in that retreat;
And that bleak upland dell's recess
Could charm in winter's wildest dress:
Whether the mountain speat has drowned,
With mingling floods, the meadow ground,
And through their hundred sluices break
The headlong torrents to the Lake;
Or the choked streamlet's deafened flow
Is hushed in crystal caves below,
And down the cliffs the trickling rills
Congeal in columned icicles.

But when day's hasty steps retire,
Still sweeter by the blazing fire,
In that low parlour's narrow bound,
To draw the social circle round;
Where no unwelcome step intrudes,
To check the heart's unstudied moods.
—Round flows the rural jest; the tale
Of Cloister in fair Clifton dale;
Of Weeping Spirit of the Glen;

These lines refer to some of the popular superstitions and romantic legends of the Author's native district, the most interesting of which have been commemorated in Sir Walter Scott's Minstrelsy of the Border.—See Scott's Poetical Works (edition of 1833), vol. III. p. 236, and vol. I. p. 193.

Or Dragon of dark Wormeden;
Of Ladies doomed by Rome's command
To sift the Church-yard mound of sand,
By penance drear to wash away
Foul murder's dire anathema.

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—Or graver history's pregnant page,
Or traveller's venturous toils engage;
Or poet's lay the bosom warms,
With virtue's praise and nature's charms,
And faithful loves and feats of arms.

And 'midst that friendly circle now
I mark a Youth with open brow,
And thoughtful blue eyes beaming mild,
And temples wreathed with clusters wild
Of light brown hair. The pensive grace
Upon his features, seems the trace
Of thought more tender and refined
Than dawns upon the vulgar mind:
But oft across his blooming cheek
Flushes a quick and hectic streak,
Like that which, in an Indian sky,
Though cloudless, tells of danger nigh!
Deepening—until the gazer start,
As if he saw Fate's shadowy dart,
Foredoomed to strike from life and fame
The latest of a gentle name!

How fearful to affection's view
That blush more bright than beauty's hue—
Where, sad as cypress wreath, the rose
Amid Consumption's ruin glows,
Bedecking with deceitful bloom
The untimely passage to the tomb!

Rememberest thou, my Friend, the hour
When some strange sympathetic power
Once led from far our wandering feet
At that Monastic Mound to meet?

129

—Where slopes the green sward to the west,
We sat upon the tomb where rest
My kindred's bones,—conversing late
Of Man's mysterious mortal state.
'Twas summer eve, serene and still;
The broad moon rose behind the hill,
Blending her soft and soothing ray
With the last gleam of closing day:
Amid the circling woods alone
Was heard the stockdove's plaintive moan,
And streamlet's murmur gliding by;
All else was calm in earth and sky.
The scene was such as fancy paints
For visit of departed saints—
And sure if that sublime controul
Which thrills the deep chords of the soul—
If tears of joy 'midst grief—could prove
The ministry of sainted love—
Our hearts in that blest hour might dare
To own some heavenly presence there!

Yes still, dear Friend! (although it seem
To worldly minds a childish dream)
When life is o'er—I love to think
There still may last some mystic link
Between the Living and the Dead,—
Some beam from better regions shed
To lighten with celestial glow
The pilgrim's darkling path below:
Or, if 'tis but a vain belief,
Framed by the phantasies of grief,
A loftier solace is not vain—
Death parts us but to meet again!

Ah, while amid the world's wild strife
We yet may trace that sweeter life,

130

Now fading like a lovely dream,—
Why cannot Memory too redeem
The feelings pure, the thoughts sublime,
That sanctified our early prime?—
Alas! like hues of breaking day
The soul's young visions pass away;
And elder Fancy scarce may dare
To image aught again so fair—
As when that Mother's warblings wild
Had soothed to rest her sickly child,
And o'er my couch I dreamt there hung
Celestial forms, with seraph tongue
Who told of purer happier spheres,
Exempt from pain, unstained with tears!
Or, waking lone at midnight deep,
When heaven's bright host their vigils keep,
I viewed with meek mysterious dread
The moon-beam through the lattice shed—
Deeming 'twas God's eternal Eye,
Bent down to bless us from on high!

And when that gentlest human Friend
No more her anxious eye could bend
On one by young affliction prest
More close to her maternal breast,
I deemed she still beheld afar
My sorrows from some peaceful star,—
In slumber heard her faintly speak,
And felt her kiss upon my cheek.
And oft, when through the solemn wood
My steps the schoolway path pursued,
I paused beneath its quiet shade
To view the spot where she was laid,
And pray, like hers, my life might be
From all ungentle passions free,—

131

It seemed as if I inly felt
That still her presence round me dwelt,
And awed me with a holy dread,
Lest I should sin and grieve the dead.

O sainted Spirit!—(if thy care
An earthly wanderer yet may share!)
Still in celestial dreams return
To bid faith's failing embers burn—
While yet unquenched the smoking brand
By worldly passion's wasting hand!
Oh still,—although around my breast
The snaky coils of care are prest,—
Let fond remembrance oft restore
Each long-lost friend endeared of yore,
And picture o'er the scenes where first
My life and loveliest hopes were nurst;
The heaths which once my fathers trod,
Amidst the wild to worship God;
The tales which fired my boyish eye
With patriot feelings proud and high;
The sacred sabbath's mild repose;
The social evening's saintly close,
When ancient Zion's solemn song
Arose the lonely banks among;
The music of the mountain rills;
The moonlight sleeping on the hills;
The Starry Scriptures of the sky,
By God's own finger graved on high
On Heaven's expanded scroll—whose speech
To every tribe doth knowledge teach,
When silent Night unlocks the seals,
And to forgetful Man reveals
The wonders of eternal might
In living lines of glorious light!

132

Nor yet shall faithful memory fail
To trace the shepherd's homelier tale;

Old John Turnbull, the person alluded to—(for many years my father's shepherd, as his father had been shepherd to my grandfather)—was one of the worthiest, and, in his humble sphere, one of the most generous-hearted men, I ever knew. To the most reverential piety, he also united a rich vein of genuine humour and drollery, combined with a native delicacy of feeling, and regulated by a propriety of demeanour, that might do honour to any station. My old friend, however, was not without some of the hereditary prejudices of his rank and nation. One of his characteristic traits was, a determined detestation of the “Southron” of ancient times, and a sovercign contempt for those of the present; and he always spoke of the Parliamentary Union as the “ruination of Scotland.”

For well I loved each simple strain
Rehearsed by that kind-hearted swain,
Of sports where he a part had borne
In boyhood's blithe and cloudless morn;
Or pious words and spotless worth
Of friends who long have left the earth:
Or legends of the olden times,
And rural jests, and rustic rhymes:
While aye as he the story told
Of Scotland oft betrayed and sold,
With ancient grudge his wrath would glow
Against that “faithless Southron foe!”

Nor shall the enthusiast dreams decay
Which charmed the long and lonely day,
When, wrapt in chequered Border cloak,
On Blaiklaw's ridge I watched the flock,
(What time the harvest toils detain
The Shepherd with the reaper train:)
When, far remote, I loved to lie
And gaze upon the flecker'd sky,
Amid the mountain thyme's perfume,
Where boundless heaths of purple bloom,
Heard but the zephyr's rustling wing
And wild-bee's ceaseless murmuring,
—'Twas there, amid the moorlands wild,
A Fairy found the mountain child,
And oped to its enchanted eyes
Imagination's Paradise.

Even as I muse my bosom burns,
The Past unto my soul returns;

133

And lovely, in the hues of truth,
Return the Scenes, the Friends of Youth!
I see the dusky track afar,
Where, lighted by the evening star,
I sought that home of early love.
The balmy west-wind stirs the grove,
And waves the blossom'd eglantine
I taught around its porch to twine.
I hear kind voices on the breeze,
From the green bower of cherry-trees.
The sire—the kindred band I see—
They rise with smiles to welcome me!
—Again sweet Fancy's dream is gone,
And 'midst the wild I walk alone!

Now scattered far the smiling flowers
That grew around these rustic bowers:
Ungentle hearts, and strangers rude,
Have passed along its solitude!
The hearth is cold, the walls are bare,
That heard my grandsire's evening prayer—
Gone even the trees he planted there!
—Yet still, dear Friend, methinks 'twere sweet
To trace once more that loved retreat;
Still, there, where'er my footsteps roam,
‘My heart untravelled' finds a home:
For 'midst these Border Mountains blue,
And Vales receding from the view,
And lonely Lakes and misty Fells,
Some nameless charm for ever dwells,—
Some spirit that again can raise
The visions of Departed Days,
And thoughts unuttered—undefined—
That gleamed across my infant mind!

134

—O, lovely was the blest controul
Which came like music o'er my soul,
While, there,—a rude untutored boy,
With heart tuned high to Nature's joy,—
Subdued by beauty's winning form,
Or kindling 'midst the mountain Storm,—
Alive to Feeling's gentle smart,
Which wakes but does not wound the heart,—
I dreamt not of the workings deep
Of wilder passions yet asleep!

Long from those native haunts estranged,
My home but not my heart is changed—
Amid the city's feverish stir
'Tis still a mountain-wanderer!

At the time these lines were written, in 1811, the Author entertained some thoughts of going abroad, perhaps permanently; but he had not the slightest anticipation of the circumstances which, eight years afterwards, induced him to emigrate with his relatives to South Africa, and so singularly realized the “bodings” he thus expressed.

And though (if bodings be not vain)
Far other roamings yet remain,
In climes where, 'mid the unwonted vales,
No early friend the wanderer hails,
Nor well-known hills arise to bless
His walks of pensive loneliness;
Yet still shall fancy haunt with you
The scenes beloved when life was new,
And oft with tender zeal return,
By yon deserted tomb to mourn;
For, oh, whate'er the lot may be
In Fate's dark book reserved for me,
I feel that nought in later life,—
In Fortune's change, or Passion's strife,
Or proud Ambition's boundless grasp,—
This bosom with a tie can clasp,
So strong—so sacred—as endears
The Scenes and Friends of Early Years!

Edinburgh: August, 1811.

135

STREAMS, WHOSE LONELY WATERS GLIDE.

Streams, whose lonely waters glide
Down Glen-Lynden's wizard dell,
Woods that clothe the mountain's side,
Winged wanderers of the fell,
Tell me in what flowery glade
Shall I find my favourite Maid!

Echo of the haunted rock,
Heard'st thou not my Azla's song?
Sought she not the plighted oak
Lynden's briary banks among?
Lingers she by airy steep,
Or elfin lakelet still and deep?

Rover of the land and sea,
Zephyr! whither dost thou fly!
Bear'st thou home the loaded bee?
Or the lover's secret sigh?
Hast thou not my Azla seen
Through all the mazes thou hast been?

Didst thou perfume, O gentle gale!
In Araby, thy fragrant breath?
In sweeter Teviot's thymy vale?
On Lynden's hills of blossom'd heath?
Or, Zephyr! hast thou dared to sip
The sigh of love from Azla's lip?

136

Young Azla's eye of tender blue
Outvies the crystal fountain bright,—
Her silken locks of sunny hue,
The birch-tree's foliage floating light;
And light her form as bounding fawn,
Just wakened by the vernal dawn.

Like youthful Spring's refreshing green,
Like dewy Morning's smile of gladness,
The radiance of her look serene
Might win to joy the soul of sadness,
But where in nature shall I find
An Image for my Azla's mind?

The azure depths of summer noon
Might paint her pure and happy breast:
Yet, like the melancholy moon,
She loveth pensive pleasures best,
And woos the fairy solitudes
Embosomed in the leafy woods.

The melodies of air and earth,
The hues of mountain, wood, and sky,
And Loneliness more sweet than Mirth,
That leads the mind to musings high,
Give to the sweet enthusiast's face
The charm of more than earthly grace!

But tell me now, ye Woods and Streams,
Fond Echo, and thou sighing Gale,
Why She, the Fairy of my dreams,
Thus in her plighted faith doth fail?
Of all of you I'll jealous be
Should she forget our Trysting Tree!

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Ah no! She fails not! 'Mong these bowers
Young Love, I ween, delights to dwell,
And spends his most entrancèd hours
In Contemplation's hermit cell;
Where votaries of gentle mood
Find him with Truth and Solitude.

A GRACEFUL FORM, A GENTLE MIEN.

A graceful form, a gentle mien,
Sweet eyes of witching blue;
Dimples where young Love nestles in,
Around a ‘cherry mou:’

The temper kind, the taste refined,
A heart nor vain nor proud;
A face, the mirror of her mind,
Like sky without a cloud:

A fancy pure as virgin snows,
Yet playful as the wind;
A soul alive to others' woes,
But to her own resigned:

This gentle portraiture to frame
Required not Fancy's art:
But do not ask the lady's name—
'Tis hidden in my heart.

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THE LEGEND OF THE ROSE.

Lady, one who loves thee well
Sent me here with thee to dwell;
I bring with me thy lover's sigh,
I come with thee to live and die;
To live with thee, beloved, carest—
To die upon that gentle breast!
—Sweeter than the myrtle wreath,
Of Love and Joy my blossoms breathe—
Love—whose name thy breast alarms,
Yet who heightens all thy charms,—
Who lends thy cheek its orient dyes,
Who triumphs in thy bashful eyes—
'Twas from him I borrowed, too,
My sweet perfume, my purple hue;
His fragrant breath my buds exhale;
My bloom—Ah, Lady! list my tale.—

I was the summer's fairest pride,
The Nightingale's betrothed Bride;
In Indian bower I sprung to birth
When Love first lighted on the earth,
And then my pure inodorous blossom
Blooming on its thornless tree,
Was snowy as his Mother's bosom
Rising from the emerald sea.

139

Young Love, rambling through the wood,
Found me in my solitude,
Bright with dew and freshly blown,
And trembling to fond Zephyr's sighs;
But, as he stopt to gaze upon
The living gem with longing eyes,
It chanced a Bee was busy there
Searching for its fragrant fare;
When Cupid stooping, too, to sip,
The angry insect stung his lip—
And, gushing from the ambrosial cell,
One bright drop on my bosom fell!

Weeping, to his Mother he
Told the tale of treachery;
And she, her vengeful boy to please,

Camdeo, the Hindoo Cupid, is represented as a beautiful youth, bearing a bow of sugar-cane, with a string of bees, and five arrows, each pointed with an Indian blossom of a pungent quality.

Strung his bow with captive bees;
But placed upon my guiltless stem
The poisoned stings she plucked from them—
And none, since that eventful morn,
Has found the flower without a thorn!

Yet even the sorrows Love doth send
But more divine enchantment lend:
Still in Beauty's sweetest bowers
Blooms the Rose, the Queen of Flowers,
Brightening with the sanguine stains,
Borrowed from celestial veins,—
And breathing of the kiss she caught
From Love's own lips with rapture fraught!

140

THE WREATH.

I sought the garden's gay parterre,
To cull a wreath for Mary's hair;
And thought I surely there might find
Some emblem of her lovely mind,
Where taste displays the varied bloom
Of Flora's beauteous drawing-room.

And, first, of peerless form and hue,
The stately Lily caught my view,
Fair bending from her graceful stem
Like queen with regal diadem:
But though I viewed her with delight,
She seemed too much to woo the sight,—
A fashionable belle—to shine
In some more courtly wreath than mine.

I turned, and saw a tempting row
Of flaunting Tulips full in blow—
But left them with their gaudy dyes
To Nature's beaux—the butterflies.

Bewilder'd 'mid a thousand hues,
Still harder grew the task to choose:
Here, delicate Carnations bent
Their heads in lovely languishment,—
Much as a pensive Miss expresses,
With neck declined, her soft distresses!
There, gay Jonquilles in foppish pride
Stood by the Painted-Lady's side,

141

And Hollyhocks superbly tall
Beside the Crown-Imperial:
But still, 'mid all this gorgeous glow,
Seemed less of sweetness than of show,
While close beside in warning grew
The allegoric Thyme and Rue.

There, too, stood that fair-weather flower,
Which, faithful still in sunshine hour,
With fervent adoration turns
Its breast where golden Phœbus burns—
Base symbol (which I scorned to lift)
Of friends that change as fortunes shift!

Tired of the search, I bent my way
Where Teviot's haunted waters stray;
And from the wild-flowers of the grove
I framed a garland for my Love.
The slender circlet first to twine,
I plucked the rambling Eglantine,
That decked the Cliff in clusters free,
As sportive and as sweet as she:
I stole the Violet from the brook,
Though hid like her in shady nook,
And wove it with the mountain Thyme—
The myrtle of our stormy clime:
The Blue-bell looked like Mary's eye;
The Blush-rose breathed her tender sigh:
And Daisies, bathed in dew, exprest
Her innocent and gentle breast.

And, now, my Mary's brow to braid,
This chaplet in her bower is laid—
A fragrant emblem, fresh and wild,
Of simple Nature's sweetest child.

142

FRAGMENTS OF A DREAM OF FAIRY-LAND.

FYTTE I.

“And see not ye that bonny road
“That winds about the fernie brae?
“That is the road to fair Elfland,
“Where thou and I this night maun gae.”
Thomas the Rhymer.

Thro countreis seir, holtis and rockis hie,
Ouir vaillis, planis, woddis, wallie sey,
Ouir fluidis fair, and mony strait mountane,
We war caryit in twinkling of ane ee;
Our charett flew, and raid nocht, as thocht me.
Gawin Douglas.

'Twas in the leafy month of June,
Ere yet the lark hath hushed his tune;
When fair athwart the summer sky
Bright fleecy clouds sail softly by,
And sweeping shadows lightly pass,
Like spirits dancing o'er the grass;
And new-fledged birds are in the bowers,
And bees are humming round the flowers,
And through the meads is heard the stir
Of the blithe chirring grasshopper:

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'Twas sweet Midsummer Eve: I lay
Alone by Eildon's haunted brae,
Soothed by the sound of woods and streams;
While, fitful as the shifting gleams,
Of sunshine o'er the forest glade,
Poetic fancies round me played;
And young love's tender reveries
Came fluttering, like the fragrant breeze,
Or wild-dove's wing among the trees.
Thus slumber found me: and I fell
Into a trance, as if some spell
Had rapt my willing soul away
From its cast slough of earthly clay:
Was waking mortal ne'er so blest—
Then, gentle Azla, ‘list, O list!’

Methought a Maid of heavenly mien,
Whose garb bespoke the Elfin Queen,
Appeared—and, with a winning smile
Might well the wariest heart beguile,
Waved o'er me thrice her magic wand,
And summoned me to Fairy-Land.
Who could resist the charming Elf?
She seemed the while my Azla's self!

Now, seated in her wingèd car,
We lightly speed o'er realms afar,
Where alpine ridges wildly rise,
With glaciers gleaming to the skies,
Or sandy deserts, scorched and dun,
Stretch boundless 'neath a fiery sun.
Her fair hand guides the magic rein,
While buoyantly o'er mount and plain,
And over ocean's trackless tides,
Our car like a swift comet glides:

144

Till far beyond the Western Deep
And fair Hesperides we sweep;
Then launch upon the Enchanted Sea,
Which laves the Land of Faërie.

At length, when daylight long has passed,
And the short night is waning fast,
We leap upon the star-lit strand
Of a remote and shadowy land;
Where mountains rear their summits bold
From dark umbrageous forests old;
And streamlets flow with lulling sound
Through verdant valleys opening round?
And breathing myrtles softly twine
Their branches with the clustering vine;
And zephyrs wave with fragrant wing
The tresses of immortal Spring.

Ah Lady! in that lovely Isle
How sweet, methought, to live with Thee!
Where summer skies for ever smile,
And sighing gales just stir the sea,
The silvery sea without a bound
That clasps th' Elysian Isle around! [OMITTED]

145

FYTTE II.

Within an Yle methought I was—
Ful thick of grasse ful soft and swete,
With flouris fele fare undir fete,
And lytel used, it seemed thus,
For bothe Flora and Zephyrus,
They two that makin flouris growe,
Had made ther dwelling there, I trowe.—
—And many a hart and many a hinde
Was both before me and behind,
Of fawnis, sowirs, buckis, does,
Was ful the wodde, and many roes,
And many squirrillis, that sete
Ful high upon the trees and ete.
Chaucer's Dreame.

'Tis day-break! Lo, the Morning Star
Looks o'er the brightening peaks afar;
And now we wander, hand in hand,
Along the shell-besprinkled strand,
To watch Aurora's footsteps dim
Come dancing o'er blue ocean's brim,
With Zephyr, flinging in his mirth
Fresh odours o'er the laughing earth:
And now with upward gaze we mark,
High poised in air, the minstrel lark,
Warbling wild his thrilling strain,
As if his breast could not contain
The out-gushings of his boundless pleasure,—
And, therefore, without stint or measure,
From his oriel in the cloud,
His joyous lay he singeth loud.

Now we walk the groves among,
Rich with fragrance, rife with song,

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Where the woodbine breathes its balm
'Neath the shadow of the palm;
Where the hum of early bee
Soundeth from the citron tree;
And the squirrel, just awake,
From his fur the dew doth shake,
As he skips from oak to pine
O'er festoons of eglantine.
—Now, ere yet the sun may sip
The fresh dew from the lily's lip,
While the pheasant leaves the brake,
While the wild swan seeks the lake,
While the long cool shadows lean
O'er the dell's delicious green,
Lo, we trace the gurgling rills
To their fountains in the hills;
Where the hart and hind are straying,
Where the antelopes are playing,
Where the flocks which need no folding
Jocundly their games are holding,
As if old Pan the watch were keeping,
While the wanton kids are leaping,
And the rocky cliffs resounding
To their bold hoofs wildly bounding. [OMITTED]

147

FYTTE III.

There the wyse Merlin whylome wont (they say)
To make his wonne, in fearful hollow place,
Under a rock that lyes a little way
From the swift river, tombling down apace
Emongst the woody hilles—
—And there that great magitian had deuiz'd,
By his deep science and hell-dreaded might,
A looking-glassc, right wondrously aguiz'd—
—It vertue had to shew in perfect sight
Whatever thing was in the world contaynd.
Spenser's Faery Queene.

But when up the middle heaven
Sol his glowing car hath driven,
From his fervid searching eye
To the Enchanted Grot we hie,—
Where a solemn river sounds,
Deep amidst the forest bounds,
And romantic rocks are seen
Rising o'er the cedar screen.
Like some temple's ruined pile
Quarried in the cliffs of Nile,
In the mount's basaltic side
Opes the pillared portal wide;
Grooved with sculpture strange and quaint—
Hieroglyphic figures faint,
Interlaced with graceful twine
Of amaranth and jessamine.

At the touch of magic wand,
Slow the granite gates expand;
And, extending far aloof,
Inward springs the archèd roof

148

O'er the high and echoing hall,
Circled by its columned wall
With stalactite frieze bedight:
Fitting lustres dimly light
The dome with gleam of sparry gems,
Like jewelled stars and diadems
Pendent from the pictured ceiling,—
Gorgeous tracery revealing,
Sketched in nature's arabesque
With necromantic shapes grotesque,
Never seen by sea or land,
Never graved by human hand.
—Through that rich and stately room
Hangs a soft yet solemn gloom,
Like the meditative shade
By primeval forests made;
While, with coral crusted o'er,
Spreads the fair mosaic floor,
Round whose ample verge, I ween,
Ne'er was creeping creature seen.

But, behold, an inner aisle
Opens from this shadowy pile,
Deep into the Stygian gloom
Of the mountain's caverned womb;
Whence the rushing of a river
Sounds upon the ear for ever,
Like some prophet's solemn strain
Warning guilty worlds in vain.
—I turned; and to my asking eye
Thus the Fairy made reply:
“'Tis the ceaseless Stream of Time,
Flowing on its path sublime
To the dim and shoreless sea
Of fathomless Eternity:

149

Light as foam on ocean's tide,
Mortals on its current glide;
Nor could an archangel's force
For an instant stay its course.”

While I listen, slowly rise
Wilder wonders to my eyes:
Strange unearthly light is streaming
Down that Delphic cave—and, gleaming
From its dim chaotic shelves,
The Magic Mirror of the Elves
Emerges from the mystic shroud,
Like the broad moon from a cloud.

Slowly o'er the wizard glass
Phantom shapes successive pass,
Groups like these on Grecian Shrine
Graved by sculptor's art divine,
Proudly bearing spear and shield
Helmed and harnessed for the field,
—As more earnestly I look,
Behold, as in a blazoned book,
Pale History unfolds her page—
Down from man's primeval age,
Through the lapse of distant times,
Round the wide globe's many climes,
Blotted with ten thousand crimes.
Still I view, where'er I scan,
Man himself a wolf to man;
Thirsting for his brother's blood,
From Abel's murder to the Flood—
From Nimrod's huntings to the cry
That rent the horror-stricken sky,
When, yesterday, Napoleon's car
Resistless swept the ranks of war,

150

And trampled Europe cowered beneath
The murder-glutted scythe of death.

The piteous scene I pondered well,
Till darkness on my spirit fell;
Then, turning mournfully aside,
I thus addressed my silent Guide:—
“Fair Spirit! shut that page of woe:
It is enough for me to know
That thus, from Adam's day to ours,
Man ever hath abused the powers
Our bounteous Maker to him gave;
His brother's tyrant or his slave,
Still miserable, weak or strong,
Enduring or inflicting wrong!
—My soul is weary of the past:
Prospectively the vision cast,
That my prophetic gaze may trace
The onward fortunes of our race:
Or, from the hidden rolls of fate,
Unfold the destinies that wait
My country, on the perilous track
Whence nations never voyage back.”—
Replied the Fay—“Thou seek'st to scan
Dark knowledge all unmeet for man:
Time's issues I may not reveal,
Bound fast by Fate's mysterious seal.
Let it content thee to explore
The labyrinths of lawful lore;
And learn the Future to forecast
From Wisdom's horoscope—the Past. [OMITTED]

151

FYTTE IV.

And all about grew every flower and tree,
To which sad lovers were transformed of yore.—
—Me seems of those I see the hapless fate
To whom sweet poets' verse hath given endless date.
Spenser's Faery Queene.

The cool breeze from the billowy main
Breathes through the cedar groves again;
When from the grotto's mystic shade
We fare into the forest glade,
And through its wildering mazes glide
Until we gain the farther side,—
Whence the distant view descries,
Dimly seen, the Vale of Sighs.

Winding down, the pathway slow
Leads us to that valley low,
Deep amidst the mountains wending;
Where the silvery willows, bending
O'er the melancholy stream,
Like despairing damsels seem,
With dishevelled tresses swinging,
Evermore their white hands wringing.
All along that lonesome glen,
Tall grey stones like shapes of men,
Rocks with tufts of myrtle crowned,
Cast their shadows o'er the ground—
Shadows strange that seem to fly,
Ghost-like, from my earthly eye;
And, at times, a feeble wail
Floats upon the sighing gale,

152

From those willows by the river
With their tresses waving ever,
Or the myrtle bowers above,
Like voice of one who dies for love.

As we silently pass on,
Fair groups, upon the marble stone
Graven with surpassing skill,
The softened soul with pity fill:
Many a scene of mournful mood,
And acts of generous womanhood,
Such as high bards in ancient days
Sung to the lyre in tender lays,
In magic sculpture tell their tale,
Along that monumental vale,—
Preserved from ravage or decay
While crowns and empires pass away:
—Full many a scene we linger o'er
That thrilled the hearts of classic yore—
Young Thisbe watching in the wood,
Sweet Hero by wild Sestos' flood,
Pale Dido in her frenzied grief,
Deserted by the Trojan chief:
For in that Vale of Sighs appear
All scenes that waken pity's tear,
All tragic tales of gentle strain
Where woman's heart has bled in vain.
—In vain? No! I the word recal:
A lofty moral lives in all
Those stories of the heart's devotion,
Opening sources of emotion
Deeper far than Love can boast
Where his hopes have ne'er been crossed.

153

At length, by the spell-guarded mount,
Where gushes a bright river's fount
Into the limpid pool below,
We pause with faltering step and slow
In that lone dell's remotest bound,
Arrested by a mournful sound;
For there, where clustering forests tall
Embower the deep-voiced waterfall,
Is heard the ever-moaning wail
Of one forlorn. Her tragic tale
In Grecian glen sweet Ovid found-
The Nymph who faded to a sound
For grief of unrequited love.
And lo, her Naiad sisters rove
For ever round the enchanted spot
Where Echo holds her misty grot,
Conversing with the viewless shade
Hovering o'er that haunted glade.
Oft as they tell her hapless story,
Responsive from the cavern hoary,
Loud wailing words of tender woe,
Half heard amidst the waters' flow,
Murmur of love's deceitful arts,
Of blighted forms and broken hearts,
And woman's triumph pure and high
In generous, deathless constancy! [OMITTED]

154

FYTTE V.

What there thou seest, fair creature! is thyself;
With thee it came and goes: but follow me,
And I will lead thee where no shadow stays
Thy coming.
Paradise Lost.

Learn by a mortal yearning to ascend
Towards a higher object.—Love was given,
Encouraged, sanctioned, chiefly for that end:
For this the passion to excess was driven—
That self might be annulled; her bondage prove
The fetters of a dream, opposed to love.
Wordsworth's Laodamia.

Issuing from that pensive vale,
Soon an alpine scene we hail,
Where Olympian peaks arise
Towering to the bright blue skies,
And a rock's romantic mound,
By a ruined temple crowned,
Overhangs the central tide
Whence fair Elfland's rivers glide.
—Girt by cliff and shaggy brake,
Softly lay that silent lake,
In the mountain's stern embrace
Sleeping in its simple grace,
With a pure and placid breast,
Like a dreaming child at rest.

Leaning o'er its lilied side,
Thus began my lovely Guide:
“Listen to a legend hoar
Of far-distant days of yore:
And, while I the story tell,
Ponder thou its purport well.

155

“When first this Eden of the deep,
Was wakened from chaotic sleep,
To be the destined dwelling-place
Of those yclept the Elfin race;
(Beings formed by nature free
From sin and sad mortality;
Yet by ties of mystic birth
Linked unto the sons of Earth;)
On that bright primeval morn,
She of Fays the eldest born,—
Physis erst by mortals named,
Later as Titania famed,—
Roaming through her natal Isle,
Came where yonder votive pile
(A temple reared to Solitude
By the young Naiads of the flood)
O'erlooks the wave. With wondering eye,
She sees what seems a downward sky
Stretching far its depths of blue,
With the stars dim-gleaming through,
Whene'er the sun his brightness shrouds
'Neath some veil of fleecy clouds,
And the shadows come and go
Athwart the liquid plain below.
—As she gazes, still, behold,
Marvels to her eyes unfold;
Massive rocks and towering mountains,
With their woods and sparkling fountains,
In the inverted landscape lie,
Pointing to a nether sky.

“Suddenly, with swan-like flight
Launching from the cliffy height,
On the buoyant air she springs,
(Scorns an elf the aid of wings,)

156

In the middle space upborne,
Like a cloudlet of the morn;
With her vesture floating free,
And her locks luxuriantly
Backward o'er her shoulders flung;
While her face and bosom young
Forward bend with fearless pride
To the fair illusive tide.
—Wherefore, in her downward track,
Starts the Fairy Virgin back—
And, again, with fond surprise,
Waveward casts her wistful eyes?
Lo! to meet her wildered gaze,
Upwards through the lucid maze
Swiftly glides a glorious creature,
Sister-like in form and feature;
In her modest maiden charms,
In her lovely locks and arms,
In her eyes and graceful mien,
An image of that Elfin Queen.
—Fair Physis smiles—and from the wave
The Form returns the smile she gave:
She spreads her arms—with winning grace
The Phantom offers her embrace:
But when she fondly strives to clasp
The beauteous Shade—it flies her grasp,
Amidst the broken billows lost;
And all the enchanting scene is tost
Fantastically, heaving wide
Athwart the bosom of the tide!

“Abashed and sad, upon the strand
The virgin stood—when accents bland
Came, like sweet music on the wind,
From amaranthine groves behind:—

157

‘Grieve no longer, gentle Elf,
For that semblance of thyself!
All that meets the gaze below,
Like that shade an empty show
Formed to charm the finite sense,
Faileth from the grasp intense
Of creature longing for the love
That looks below — but lives above.
—Virgin! upward lift thine eye
Where the peak ascendeth high:
Lo! yon Mount of Vision towers
O'er Elysium's blissful bowers,
Where the flower of beauty bloweth,
Where the fruit immortal groweth.
Behold, I come thy path to guide
Up the mountain's rugged side,
Where for thee thy Lover waits
By the Enchanted Palace gates:
'Tis no shadow there that meets thee—
'Tis thy glorious bridegroom greets thee,
With that pure celestial love
Blessed Genii own above.’” [OMITTED]

158

FYTTE VI.

O pure of heart! thou need'st not ask of me
What this strong music in the soul may be!
What, and wherein it doth exist,
This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist,
This beautiful, and beauty-making power—
—Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower
A new earth and new heaven,
Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud.
Coleridge.

Now Hesper from the blushing west
Leads that sweet hour I love the best,
When birds their fluttering pinions fold,
And wild-bees seek their honied hold,
And deer that never heard a hound
Across the verdant valleys bound,
To couch among the banks of thyme
Where greenwoods to the uplands climb.
—Now by some lawny slope we linger,
While quiet Eve with jealous finger
Closes the curtains of the skies
Till modest Dian deign to rise:
Now by the murmuring beach we walk,
Pausing oft in pensive talk,
To list the hermit nightingale
Entrancing all the moonlight vale:
Or, from some sea-ward hanging steep,
View boundless ocean round us swelling,
Without a wish to cross the deep,
Or leave again that lovely dwelling.

“Behold,” (thus spoke the bright-eyed Fay,)
“Endeth now the Elfin day:

159

Ere the star of morning gleams
Thou must leave this Isle of Dreams:
Yet, before the vision part,
Mortal, let thy listening heart
Devoutly learn to understand
The scenes of this symbolic land;
For here a parable doth lie
In all that meets the ear or eye.”

Ere she ceased, pale Dian's crest,
Slowly waning in the west,
Sank behind the shadowy hill;
And the nightingale was still
On his fragrant orange bough.
It is solemn midnight now;
And the silent landscape lies
Hushed beneath the starry skies,
Like a meek and gentle child
Listening to his mother mild,
While her earnest eyes above
O'er him bend with looks of love,
As she prayeth God to keep
Watch around his midnight sleep.—
Like such heart-hushed little one,
Hung my listening soul upon
Words (which I may not rehearse
In this vain and idle verse)—
Things with deepest meaning fraught
By that Gentle Fairy taught,
In whose mien I then might trace
The sister of man's godlike race,
Ere his half-angelic nature
Lapsed into the lowlier creature,

160

Ere the golden link was riven
That upheld the heart to heaven,
And the ethereal light grew dim
Of the fallen seraphim!
—Lovely lessons there I read,
There I learn a lofty creed,
In the expression of a mind
By a fearless faith refined,
Such as we of mortal strain
Beneath the stars may not attain,
But such themes are all too high
For this lay of Phantasy;
So I close the rambling rhyme
Of my Flight to Fairy Clime.

Fitting pause from minstrel task,
Now, sweet Azla, let me ask:
But if thou wilt deign to smile
On this Dream of Elfin Isle,
Haply, in an altered strain,
I may touch the harp again;
Richer veins of thought revealing,
Deeper springs of love unsealing,
Where the Passions have their strife
'Midst ‘the bosom-scenes of life;’
For the poet's art must borrow
Spells of might from Fear and Sorrow,
Since our nature seeks relief
From Pleasure in ‘the Joy of Grief.’

161

LINES, WRITTEN ON HEARING OF THE DEATH OF AN EARLY FRIEND.

Was this sad fate the only fruit
Of thy brief, feverish life's pursuit?
To gain—for years in travel worn—
For dangers braved and troubles borne—
For all, 'mid mankind's conflicts rude,
That chills the soul or chafes the blood—
For wounded feeling's bitter smart—
For scenes that wring or sear the heart—
To gain—in a drear distant clime,
A nameless grave before thy prime!

Was this—was this the bridal bed
To which thy cruel mistress led—
The Fiend Ambition? she who brings
A chaplet wreathed with scorpion's stings
To crown her lovers!—she whose waist
And bosom are with snakes enlaced!
Who scatters wide her victim's bones
O'er blighting swamps—o'er burning zones—
Where on the stranger's loveless bier,
No friend shall drop a parting tear,
Nor sister come to watch and weep,
And break with sobs the silence deep!

Yet why o'er thy untimely urn
With vain regret thus weakly mourn?

162

Struck by the bolt that levels all,
What recks it how or where we fall?
Are they not blest, the early dead,
Wherever fate their pall may spread?
More blest than those whom long decay
Detains—slow lingering by the way,
Without a wish to wake the soul;
Yet shuddering at the dreary goal
To which with viewless pace they steal,
Dragged on by Time's resistless wheel,
Watching each early comrade sink,
Till they upon the desert brink
Stand desolate!

Ay! there are hours
When life's horizon round us lowers—
When yet afresh the wounds we feel
Which Time may close, but cannot heal,
That recklessly we seek relief
By draining e'en the dregs of grief,
(The bitter dregs which human pride
Infuses in affliction's tide,)
Repiningly upbraid the doom
Which on our loved ones shuts the tomb,
And half accuse long-suffering fate
That opens not for us its gate.

This morbid mood, then, shall we nurse,
That in affliction finds a curse?
Shall we, when Providence destroys,
Like Jonah's gourd, our cherished joys,
The wisdom frowardly arraign
That warps our web of life with pain?
No! let us with a pious trust,
Though bent by sorrow to the dust,

163

Confide, while we submissive bow,
That He will cheer who chastens now;
And to a loftier faith give scope,
Not mourn as those who have no hope.

1813.

A PARTING DIRGE.

In joyous Love's delicious spring,
I said, ‘I will of sorrow sing;’
For hearts too happy seek relief
From joy itself in fancied grief.
Alas! was there a Demon near,
That listened with malignant ear,
That looked on us with evil eye,
And laughed at coming misery?
Ah! little wist I that my song
Should be our parting dirge ere long;
And all thy lover's minstrel art
The murmurs of a breaking heart!

So fondly loved—so sweetly won—
And art Thou then for ever gone!
And what on earth remains behind
To cheer the darkening waste of mind?
What wish can Wealth or Glory wake,
Though once I prized them for thy sake?
Is there no balm by Friendship lent
To heal the hearts which fate hath rent?
Can Fancy's power no spell combine
To hide that parting look of thine?

164

Ay, other feelings may control
The inward current of the soul;
Passion in apathy may die,
This lonely breast forget to sigh,
And changes o'er my spirit pass—
But ne'er the heart be what it was,
Ere the fell fingers of Despair
Had writ their cruel legend there!

And yet, had I again to choose,
I scarce could wish this lot to lose;
Love, even though joy and hope are past,
Retains enchantment to the last:
But wherefore glows his living spark
With rapture's light to set so dark!

I heard the tempest's rising wrath—
But Thou wert then to light my path;
And what from Fortune could I fear,
While hope was kind and Thou wert near?
While round us breathed Elysium's bloom,
How could I heed the gathering gloom?
Sweet dwelt on mine thy melting eyes,
Love's golden torch illumed the skies,
And, dazzled by the enchanting ray,
I thought the storm had passed away:
Alas! 'twas like the rainbow's beam,
Quenched in the lightning's lurid gleam!

165

ELEGIAC STANZAS.

Of thee to think—with thee to rove,
In fancy, through the gentle bowers
That witnessed once our vows of love,
In joyous youth's enchanted hours:

To picture manhood's ardent toils
By love's endearing looks repaid;
While fancy culled her fairest spoils
To deck thy home's domestic shade:

To think how sweetly thy control
Had soothed the wound that aches unseen;
While griefs that waste the secret soul
Had passed—perhaps had never been!

To dream of hours for ever past,
And all that ne'er again can be—
My best beloved; is this the last,
The only solace left to me?

It must not be—I may not trust
My fancy with the fond review—
Go, perish in the silent dust,
Ye dreams, that bright with transport grew!

Ay! vain regrets shall soon be o'er,
And sterner cares the tumult quell:
And this lone bosom throb no more
With love and grief's alternate swell.

166

Silent and sad, I go to meet
What life may bring of woe or bliss;
No other hope can be so sweet,
No parting e'er so sad as this!

Ambition's strife,—without an aim,—
No longer can allure me now—
I only sought the wreaths of fame
To bind them round thy gentle brow!

167

II. PART II. SONGS AND SONNETS.

SONGS.

I. LOVE AND SOLITUDE.

[_]

Air—“Oh tell me the way how to woo.”

I love the free ridge of the mountain
When Dawn lifts her fresh dewy eye;
I love the old ash by the fountain
When Noon's summer fervours are high:
And dearly I love when the grey-mantled gloaming
Adown the dim valley glides slowly along,
And finds me afar by the pine-forest roaming,
A-list'ning the close of the grey-linnet's song.

When the moon from her fleecy cloud scatters
Over ocean her silvery light,
And the whisper of woodlands and waters
Comes soft through the silence of night,
I love by the ruined tower lonely to linger,
A-dreaming to fancy's wild witchery given,
And hear, as if swept by some seraph's pure finger,
The harp of the winds breathing accents of heaven!

168

Yet still, mid sweet fancies o'erflowing,
Oft bursts from my lone breast the sigh—
I yearn for the sympathies glowing
When hearts to each other reply!
Come, Friend of my bosom! with kindred devotion
To worship with me by wild mountain and grove;
Oh, come, my Eliza! with dearer emotion—
With rapture to hallow the chaste home of love!

II. MAID OF MY HEART, A LONG FAREWELL.

[_]

Air—“Logan Water.”

Maid of my heart—a long farewell!
The bark is launched, the billows swell,
And the vernal gales are blowing free
To bear me far from love and thee!

I hate Ambition's haughty name,
And the heartless pride of Wealth and Fame;
Yet now I haste through ocean's roar
To woo them on a distant shore.

Can pain or peril bring relief
To him who bears a darker grief?
Can absence calm this feverish thrill?
—Ah, no!—for thou wilt haunt me still!

Thy artless grace, thy open truth,
Thy form that breathed of love and youth,
Thy voice by Nature framed to suit
The tone of Love's enchanted lute!

169

Thy dimpling cheek and deep blue eye,
Where tender thought and feeling lie!
Thine eye-lid like an evening cloud
That comes the star of love to shroud!

Each witchery of soul and sense,
Enshrined in angel innocence,
Combined to frame the fatal spell—
That blest and broke my heart!—Farewell!

III. I'LL BID MY HEART BE STILL.

[_]

Air—“Farewell, ye fading flowers!”

I'll bid my heart be still,
And check each struggling sigh;
And there's none e'er shall know
My soul's cherish'd woe,
When the first tears of sorrow are dry.

They bid me cease to weep—
For glory gilds his name;
But the deeper I mourn,
Since he ne'er can return
To enjoy the bright noon of his fame!

While minstrels wake the lay
For peace and freedom won,
Like my lost lover's knell
The tones seem to swell,
And I hear but his death-dirge alone!

170

My cheek has lost its hue,
My eye grows faint and dim;
But 'tis sweeter to fade
In grief's gloomy shade,
Than to bloom for another than him!

IV. O THE EWE-BUGHTING'S BONNY.

[_]

Air—“The Yellow-hair'd Laddie.”

O the ewe-bughting's bonny, both e'ening and morn,
When our blithe shepherds play on the bog-reed and horn;
While we're milking they're lilting sae jocund and clear;
But my heart's like to break when I think o' my dear
O the shepherds take pleasure to blow on the horn,
To raise up their flocks i' the fresh simmer morn:
On the steep ferny banks they feed pleasant and free—
But alas! my dear heart, all my sighing's for thee!

O the sheep-herding's lightsome amang the green braes
Where Cayle wimples clear 'neath the white-blossomed slaes,
Where the wild-thyme and meadow-queen scent the saft gale
And the cushat croods leesomely down in the dale.
There the lintwhite and mavis sing sweet frae the thorn,
And blithe lilts the laverok aboon the green corn,
And a' things rejoice in the simmer's glad prime—
But my heart's wi' my love in the far foreign clime!

171

O the hay-making's pleasant, in bright sunny June—
The hay-time is cheery when hearts are in tune—
But while others are joking and laughing sae free,
There's a pang at my heart and a tear i' my ee.
At e'en i' the gloaming, adown by the burn,
Fu' dowie and wae, aft I daunder and mourn;
Amang the lang broom I sit greeting alane,
And sigh for my dear and the days that are gane.

O the days o' our youthheid were heartsome and gay,
When we herded thegither by sweet Gaitshaw brae,
When we plaited the rushes and pu'd the witch-bells
By the Cayle's ferny howms and on Hounam's green fells.
But young Sandy bood gang to the wars wi' the laird,
To win honour and gowd—(gif his life it be spared!)
Ah! little care I for walth, favour, or fame,
Gin I had my dear shepherd but safely at hame!

Then, round our wee cot though gruff winter sould roar,
And poortith glowr in like a wolf at the door;
Though our toom purse had barely twa boddles to clink,
And a barley-meal scone were the best on our bink;
Yet, he wi' his hirsel, and I wi' my wheel,
Through the howe o' the year we wad fend unco weel;
Till the lintwhite, and laverok, and lambs bleating fain,
Brought back the blithe time o' ewe-bughting again.

The first verse of this song is old. It was transcribed by the editor, from a fragment in the handwriting of the celebrated Lady Grisel Baillie, inclosed in a letter written from Scotland to her brother Patrick, who was at that time an exile in Holland along with her father (afterwards Earl of Marchmont) and her future husband, Baillie of Jerviswood. The style is not unlike that of her own sweet song —“O were na my heart light I wad dee.” The other four verses are an attempt to complete the simple ditty in the same pastoral strain.—T. P.

172

V. MARY OF GLEN-FYNE.

[_]

Gaelic Air—“O mo Mhairi Luogh.”

Oh , my lovely Mary! Mary of Glen-Fyne!
Oh, my gentle Mary! Mary, thou art mine!
Oh, enchanting maiden! thou dost far outshine
All who wear the plaiden in this glen of thine!

By Loch-Moraig's wild wood young affection grew,
Ere our simple childhood love's sweet language knew:
Kindness still grew stronger, till its depth was more
Than was known to lovers in this world before!

Oh, my lovely Mary! &c.

Cushats, fondly cooing, taught me how to woo;
The soft art of suing woodlarks taught me too;
And the laverok, thrilling in the sky above,
Told the tender accents of impassioned love!

Oh, my lovely Mary! &c.

I am but the herdsman of Loch-Moraig's flock;
She, my mountain rosebud, boasts no gentle stock;
But for rank or riches I shall ne'er repine
While that priceless jewel, Mary's heart, is mine!

Oh, my lovely Mary! &c.

173

VI. COME AWA, COME AWA!

[_]

Air—“Haud awa frae me, Donald.”

Come awa, come awa,
An' o'er the march wi' me, lassie:
Leave your Southron wooers a',
My winsome bride to be, lassie.
Lands nor gear I proffer you,
Nor gauds to busk ye fine, lassie,
But I've a heart that's leal an' true,
And a' that heart is thine, lassie.

Come awa, come awa,
An' see the kindly North, lassie,
Out o'er the peaks o' Lammerlaw,
An' by the links o' Forth, lassie;
And when we tread the heather bell
Aboon Demayat lea, lassie,
You'll view the land o' flood and fell—
The noble North Countrie, lassie!

Come awa, come awa,
An' leave your Southland hame, lassie;
The kirk is near, the ring is here—
An' I'm your Donald Græme, lassie,
Rock and reel and spinning wheel,
And English cottage trig, lassie,
Haste, leave them a', wi' me to speel
The braes 'yont Stirling brig, lassie.

174

Come awa, come awa,
I ken your heart is mine, lassie,
And true luve sall make up for a'
For whilk ye might repine, lassie.
Your father—he has gien consent,
Your step-dame looks na kind, lassie—
Oh, that our foot were on the bent,
An' the Lowlands far behind, lassie!

Come awa, come awa!
Ye'll ne'er hae cause to rue, lassie;
My cot blinks blithe beneath the shaw,
My bonny Avondhu, lassie:
There's birk and slae on ilka brae,
And brakens waving fair, lassie;
And gleaming lochs and mountains grey—
Can aught wi' them compare, lassie!
Come awa, come awa, &c.

VII. THE HIGHLANDS!

[_]

Air—“My heart's in the Highlands.”

The Highlands! the Highlands!—O gin I were there;
Tho' the mountains an' moorlands be rugged an' bare,
Tho' bleak be the clime, an' but scanty the fare,
My heart's in the Highlands—O gin I were there!

The Highlands! the Highlands!—My full bosom swells
When I think o' the streams gushing wild through the dells,
And the hills towering proudly, the lochs gleaming fair!
My heart's in the Highlands!—O gin I were there!

175

The Highlands! the Highlands!—Far up the grey glen
Stands a cozy wee cot, wi' a but and a ben,
An' a deas at the door, wi' my auld mother there,
Crooning—“Haste ye back, Donald, an' leave us nae mair!”
The Highlands! the Highlands! &c.

VIII. THE DARK-HAIRED MAID.

[_]

Gaelic Air—“Mo Nighean dhu.”

O sweet is she who thinks on me,
Behind yon dusky mountain;
In greenwood bower, at gloaming hour,
We'll meet by Morag's Fountain.

My hounds are on the hills of deer—
My heart is in the valley,
Where dark-hair'd Mary roams to hear
The woodlarks singing gaily.

O sweet is she, &c.

My hawks around the forest fly,
And wonder that I tarry,
While lone on thymy banks I lie
And dream of dark-haired Mary!

O sweet is she, &c.

Her step so light—her eye so bright—
Her smile so sweet and tender—
Her voice like music heard by night
As o'er the wilds I wander!

O sweet is she, &c.

176

Her neck which silken ringlets shroud—
Her bosom's soft commotion—
Like sea-mew hovering in the cloud,
Or heaving on the ocean!

O sweet is she, &c.

Her heart as gay as fawn at play,
Among the braes of braiken—
Yet mildly dear as melting tear
That minstrel tales awaken!

O sweet is she, &c.

And she is mine—the dark-haired Maid!
My bright, my beauteous Mary!—
The flower of Ardyn's lowly glade,
Shall bloom in high Glengary!

O sweet is she, &c.

IX. OH! NOT WHEN HOPES ARE BRIGHTEST.

[_]

Air—“The Rose Tree.”

Oh! not when hopes are brightest
Is all love's sweet enchantment known;
Oh! not when hearts are lightest,
Is all fond woman's fervour shown:
But when life's clouds o'ertake us,
And the cold world is clothed in gloom;
When summer friends forsake us,
The rose of love is best in bloom.

177

Love is no wandering vapour,
That lures astray with treacherous spark;
Love is no transient taper,
That lives an hour and leaves us dark:
But, like the lamp that lightens
The Greenland hut beneath the snow,
The bosom's home it brightens
When all beside is chill below.

X. PLEASANT TEVIOTDALE.

[_]

Air—“Jock o' Hazeldean.”

Her light touch wakes the tuneful keys,
She sings some simple lay,
That tells of scenes beyond the seas,
In Scotland far away,—
By “Ettrick banks,” or “Cowden knowes,”
Or “The briery braes o' Cayle,”
Or “Maxwell's bonny haughs and howes,”
In pleasant Teviotdale.

O gentle wind ('tis thus she sings)
That blowest to the west,
Oh could'st thou waft me on thy wings
To the land that I love best,
How swiftly o'er the ocean foam
Like a sea-bird I would sail,
And lead my loved one blithely home
To pleasant Teviotdale!

From spicy groves of Malabar
Thou greet'st me, fragrant breeze,
What time the bright-eyed evening star
Gleams o'er the orange trees;

178

Thou com'st to whisper of the rose
And love-sick nightingale—
But my heart is where the hawthorn grows,
In pleasant Teviotdale.

O that I were by Teviot side,
As when in Springwood bowers
I bounded, in my virgin pride,
Like fawn among the flowers;
When the beauty of the budding trees,
And the cuckoo's vernal tale,
Awoke the young heart's ecstacies,
In pleasant Teviotdale.

O that I were where blue-bells grow
On Roxburgh's ferny lea,
Where gowans glent and crow-flowers blow
Beneath the Trysting Tree;
Where blooms the birk upon the hill,
And the wild-rose down the vale,
And the primrose peeps by every rill,
In pleasant Teviotdale.

O that I were where Cheviot-fells
Rise o'er the uplands grey,
Where moors are bright with heather-bells,
And broom waves o'er each brae;
Where larks are singing in the sky,
And milkmaids o'er the pail,
And shepherd swains pipe merrily,
In pleasant Teviotdale.

O listen to my lay, kind love—
Say, when shall we return
Again to rove by Maxwell grove,
And the links of Wooden-burn?

179

Nay, plight thy vow unto me now,
Or my sinking heart will fail—
When I gaze upon thy pallid brow,
Far, far from Teviotdale!

Oh haste aboard! the favouring wind
Blows briskly from the shore.
Leave India's dear-bought dross behind
To such as prize it more:
Ah! what can India's lacs of gold
To withered hearts avail?
Then haste thee, love, ere hope wax cold,
And hie to Teviotdale!

XI. DEAREST LOVE! BELIEVE ME.

[_]

Gaelic Air—“O mo Mhairi luogh.”

Dearest love! believe me,
Though all else depart,
Nought shall e'er deceive thee
In this faithful heart:
Beauty may be blighted,
Youth must pass away,
But the vows we plighted
Ne'er shall know decay.

Tempests may assail us
From affliction's coast,
Fortune's breeze may fail us
When we need it most;

180

Fairest hopes may perish,
Firmest friends may change;
But the love we cherish
Nothing shall estrange.

Dreams of fame and grandeur
End in bitter tears;
Love grows only fonder
With the lapse of years:
Time, and change, and trouble,
Weaker ties unbind,
But the bands redouble
True affection twined.

181

SONNETS.

In truth, the prison, unto which we doom
Ourselves, no prison is; and hence to me,
In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound
Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground:
Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be)
Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,
Should find short solace there, as I have found.
Wordsworth.

I. TO AN EARLY FRIEND.

They called us brother bards: The same blue streams
Witnessed our youthful sports: our tears have sprung
Together, when those ancient tales were sung
That tinged our fancy's first and sweetest dreams—
Two simple boys bewitched with magic themes!
And still as riper years and judgment came,
On mutual couch we planned our mutual schemes,
Our tastes, our friendships, and our joys the same.
But not the same our task: Thy venturous lyre,
Which with the tide of genius swells or falls,
Shall charm tumultuous camps and courtly halls,
And rouse the warrior's arm and patriot's ire—
While I shall chant my simple madrigals
To smiling circles round the cottage fire.

1812.

182

II. TO THE RIVER EARN.

Thou mountain Stream, whose early torrent course
Hath many a drear and distant region seen,
Windest thy downward way with slackened force,
As with the journey thou hadst wearied been;
And, all enamoured of these margins green,
Delight'st to wander with a sportive tide;
Seeming with refluent current still to glide
Around the hazel banks that o'er thee lean.
Like thee, wild Stream! my wearied soul would roam
(Forgetful of life's dark and troublous hour)
Through scenes where Fancy frames her fairy bower,
And Love, enchanted, builds his cottage-home:
But time and tide wait not—and I, like thee,
Must go where tempests rage, and wrecks bestrew the sea!

1812.

III. OF LOVE AND LOVE'S DELIGHT.

Of love and love's delight no more I sing;
Nor praise Eliza's soft bewitching eye,
And sunny locks descending gracefully
O'er that fair bosom, like an angel's wing
Floating in light. Alas! the joyous string,
That breathed responsive to love's blissful sigh,
Ill suits the heart where hope and fancy die,
Like flowers untimely blighted in their spring.
Yet doth the memory of those gentle days
In its fixed sadness soothe my darkened mind,
And tempt oft-times to meditate the lays
In hours of happiness for her designed,
Whose lovely image, neither fates unkind,
Nor time, nor absence, from my breast can raze.

183

IV. LONG YEARS OF SORROW.

Long years of sorrow and slow-wasting care
Have stol'n from thy soft cheek its vermeil hue;
And somewhat changed the glossy locks that threw
Their shadowy beauty round thy temples fair;
And lent to those sweet eyes a sadder air,
That, from their long dark fringes laughing, blue,
Once looked like violets fresh-bathed in dew,
And seemed as they might even enchant despair!
Sickness and grief have touched thee; yet so mildly,
That though some graces of thy youth are gone,
The loveliness that witched my heart so wildly
In life's romantic spring—is still thine own:
And those meek pensive eyes, in their revealings,
Speak now of higher thoughts and deeper feelings.

V. THE EMBLEM.

Seest thou, belovèd! yonder cheerless Oak
Above the river's torrent-course reclined,
Where the fair ivy tenderly hath twined
Its arms around each bough the storm had broke,—
Hiding the ravage of the thunder stroke,
And shielding its young blossoms from the wind?
Vain care!—for, by the current undermined,
Beneath already nods th' unstable rock.
Alas! it is the emblem of our fate;
For oh! I feel thee twined around my soul,
Like yon green ivy o'er the wounded tree:
And thou must leave me, ere it be too late—
While I, in evil fortune's harsh controul,
Drift down the stream of dark adversity.

184

VI. TO LORD LYNEDOCH, On his return to Spain, March 1813.

Warrior—thou seek'st again the battle-field
Where freedom hails afar thy soul of flame;
And fall'n Iberia kindles at thy name,
As 'neath the shade of England's guardian shield,
She girds her armour on, and strives to wield
Her long-forgotten lance. Yes, there thy fame
Shall in the hymn of kindred hosts be sung
Round Spain's romantic shores, when she hath thrust
The Spoiler from her homes, and proudly hung
Her falchion on the wall—no more to rust!
Bright gleams that vengeful blade, as when of yore
It smote the Crescent on the Moslem's brow:
Warrior! she hails in thee her Cid once more,
To conquer in a fiercer conflict now!

VII. TO A FEMALE RELATIVE.

Lady, when I behold thy thoughtful eye
Dwelling benignantly upon thy Child,
Or hear thee, in maternal accents mild,
Speak of Departed Friends so tenderly—
It seems to me as years now long gone by
Were come again, with early visions fraught,
And hopes sublime, and heavenly musings, caught
From those kind eyes that watch'd my infancy!
Friend of my Mother! often in my heart
Thy kindred image shall with hers arise,
The throb of holier feeling to impart!
And aye that gentle Maid, whom sweetest ties
Of human care around thy soul entwine,
Shall with a brother's love be bound to mine.

1813.

185

VIII. TO AFFLICTION.

(Written during a dangerous Illness.)

O thou! with wakening step and withering eye,
And chalice drugg'd with wormwood to the brim,
Who com'st to probe the nerve and rack the limb,
And wring from bruised hearts the bursting sigh,—
From thee in vain affrighted mortals fly!
Thou breath'st upon them, and their senses swim
In giddy horror—while thy comrades grim,
Anguish and Dread, their snaky scourges ply.
Affliction! though I fear and hate thy hand,
And fain would shun the bitter cup thou bear'st,
Physician harsh! thy merits too I own;
For thou dispell'st illusions that withstand
Milder coercion,—and the roots uptear'st
Of cancerous ills that have the heart o'ergrown.

IX. ON PARTING WITH A FRIEND GOING ABROAD.

O, I could wish, in that light bark with thee,
Now while the stormy night-wind rages loud,
And the dim moon gleams through the dusky cloud,
To travel o'er the wild and trackless sea!
What joy, before the strong gale drifting free,
To feel the soul (long cumber'd 'mid the crowd
Of earthward-pressing cares) emerging proud,
To picture bliss and glory yet to be!
—And yet, with lingering gaze upon that shore,
To weep for all the friendly hearts we leave—
And leave even those we love not with a sigh—
As parting spirits look to earth once more
With human love—exulting while they grieve—
From the dim Ocean of Eternity!

186

X. TO THE POET CAMPBELL.

Campbell! I much have loved thy fervid strain,
Fraught with high thought, and generous feeling pure;
Rousing young hearts to dare, and to endure
All things for Truth and Freedom; to disdain
Ambition's vulgar trophies—the vile train
Of sordid baits that servile souls allure;
Intent a nobler guerdon to secure,
And live like those who have not lived in vain.
Ah! wherefore silent that inspiring shell,
Round which our souls with young entrancement hung?
The thrilling chords thy touch can wake so well
To patriot strains—why slumber they unstrung?
What, though thou hast achieved a deathless name?
God and mankind have yet a holier claim!

1819.

XI. POETS ARE NATURE'S PRIESTS.

Poets are Nature's Priests: their hallow'd eyes
Behold her Mercy-Seat within the Veil;
From their melodious lips the nations hail
Her oracles, and learn her mysteries.
With pure and pious hearts, then let them prize
Their consecration: Shall they hold for sale
The gift of Heaven? and tempt mankind to rail
At glorious powers—profaned for lusts or lies!
Thus Phineas and Hophni dared profane
God's altar—till their father's house was cursed,
And they destroy'd; and even the Ark was ta'en
From the lewd nation that such vileness nursed.
Men highly privileged are prone to ill:
Yet Israel then had Samuel—we have Wordsworth still.

1820.

187

III. PART III. MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.

THE SPAEWIFE.

Where Grubet's ancient copsewood skirts the vale,
Fringing the thymy braes of pastoral Cayle,
Near to the spot where oft, in other times,
Our gentle Thomson tuned his youthful rhymes,
(Deserted now, for good Sir William's race

Sir William Bennet, of Grubet, was the early patron of the poets Thomson and Allan Ramsay. It was at his seat on Cale-Water, a branch of the Teviot, that Thomson is said to have written several of his juvenile pieces; and there is still a tradition current in the vicinity, that the impressive description, in his “Winter,” of a man perishing in the snows, was suggested by an affecting incident of this sort which occurred at Wideopen, a neighbouring farm, during one of the poet's Christmas visits. Grubet is now a mere pastoral hamlet. The last of Sir William's descendants was “gathered to his place,” as the country people quaintly but touchingly express it, about seventy years ago.

Are ‘wed away’ and ‘gathered to their place;’)
Beyond the hamlet, 'neath an aged tree,
Crooning some scrap of ballad minstrelsy,
Sits the old crone—prepared with cunning tale
To cozen simple damsels of the dale,
Whose smiles but half conceal the fluttering qualm
With which they yield in turn the anxious palm;
While o'er the pale, sly Sandy of the Mill
Lends in a hint to help the gipsy's skill.

Old Madge the Spaewife,

Madge the Spaewife is not a sketch from fancy but from real life; although I have, in some respects, blended the features of two different gipsies of this name and vocation, who were personally known to me in early youth.

though now worn and frail,
Can travel still her rounds from Jed to Cayle;
With panniered donkey trudging o'er the moors
To bear her almous-bag for winter stores;
While frugal housewives, scolding as they give
The wonted handful, add—‘Poor Madge maun live;’

188

And maidens, though demure, are willing still
To purchase sixpence-worth of gipsy skill,
Even at the hazard of a stern rebuke,
Should such colleaguings meet some elder's look.
—Thus Madge contrives to ‘make a fend.’ But time
Has sadly changed her since her stalwart prime,
When straight and tall, with locks like raven's wing,
She roamed, the jocund mate of gipsy king;
Now bent and palsied, cowering in her cloak,
While 'neath the hood steals out the silvery lock.
We scarce can recognise the form and mien
Of her who once was ‘every inch a queen.’
Yet still she tells, as from the chimney nook
She awes the rustics with a sibyl's look,
How, in the blithe and boisterous days of old,
Ere clanship's links were broke or blood grew cold,
A hundred kinsmen drank her bridal ale
To whom both Tweed and Tyne had paid black-mail;
And how her friends, from Humber to the Tay,
Sped at her call to lykewake or to fray.
“But times are changed,” she adds; “Och! weel I trow,
Kin are grown fremit—blood's but water now!”

Poor Madge!—And yet, perchance in other guise,
Our own regrets are not a whit more wise.
Comparing the dull present with the past,
The afternoon of life seems overcast:
Not that the sun his brightness has withdrawn,
But we have lost the freshness of our dawn.

Ay! while I dally with this idle strain,
Blithe schoolboy days come back to me again;
Th' adventurous rambles high o'er Hounam fells;
The feast of blaeberries by Wearie's Wells;

189

The harrying of hawk-nests on Græmeslaw rock;
The hunts in Clifton woods of tod or brock;
Long quiet days of lonely angling sport;
Long hours by mirthful converse rendered short,—
When by the Manse, beside the cherry trees,
We tilled our little plots 'mong flowers and bees,
With hearts like that fair garden in the spring
When buds unfold and birds break forth to sing;
And he, the good old pastor, smiling nigh,
And lifting aye, at times, our thoughts on high—
“How happily the years of Thalaba went by!”

But where's our Spaewife?—With her tawny brood,
I see her sitting 'neath old Gaitshaw wood;
Her asses grazing down the broomy dale,
And Faa, her husband, angling in the Cayle.

'Tis thirty years since, near that very spot,
Just where the stream sweeps round old Elshie's cot,
Madge stopped me at the ford to spae my lot;
And, poring o'er my palm with earnest look,
Said that my name should be in printed book;
For I (a scape-grace, then some nine years old)
Should travel to far lands, and gather gold;
Should be a scholar—wed a “gentle bride”—
And build a castle on fair Teviot's side:
—“And this shall sooth betide,” quoth black-browed Madge,
“Ere nine times thrice the haw grows on the hedge!”

My Sibyl's spae-weird, like Pelides' prayer,
Was half fulfilled, half lost in empty air:
I grew a scholar—such as Madge foretold;
Became a traveller—but caught no gold;
Was wedded—but (thank Heaven!) with happier fate
Than to be matched with a patrician mate,

190

Though here my fortune, faithful to the letter,
Failing the gipsy's meaning, found a better.
—But, castle-building!—that has been my joy,
In all my wanderings ever since a boy;
Not in the Greek or Gothic style restored,
Or on Sir Walter's plan at Abbotsford,—
But, scorning line and plummet, rule and square,
I build ('tis most convenient) in the air!

1829.

LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM.

This fair Volume to our eye
Human life may typify.
View the new-born infant's face
Ere yet Mind hath stamped its trace,
Or the young brain begun to think—
'Tis like this book ere touched by ink.
Look again: As time flows by
Expression kindles in the eye,
And dawning Intellect appears
Gleaming through its smiles and tears;
Lightening up the living clay,
Year by year, and day by day;
While the Passions, as they change,
Write inscriptions deep and strange,
Telling to observant eyes
Life's eventful histories.

Lady, even so thy book
By degrees shall change its look,

191

As each following leaf is fraught
With some penned or pictured thought,
Or admits the treasured claims
Of endeared and honoured names;
While gleams of genius and of grace,
Like fine expression in a face,
Lend even to what is dark or dull
Some bright tinge of the beautiful.

Farther still in graver mood
Trace we the similitude?
Apter yet the emblem grows
As we trace it to a close.
Life, with all its freaks and follies,
Mummeries and melancholies,
Fond conceits, ill-sorted matches,
Is—a book of shreds and patches;
Stained, perchance, with many a blot,
And passages were well forgot,
And vain repinings for the past:
While Time, who turns the leaves so fast,
(The hour-glass in his other hand
With its ever-oozing sand,)
Presents full soon the final page
To the failing eye of Age,
Scribbled closely to the ending—
And, if marred, past hope of mending.

1828.

192

A POET'S FAVOURITE.

Oh she is guileless as the birds
That sing beside the summer brooks!
With music in her gentle words,
With magic in her winsome looks.

With beauty by all eyes confessed,
With grace beyond the reach of art;
And, better still than all the rest,
With perfect singleness of heart.

With kindness like a noiseless spring
That faileth ne'er in heat or cold;
With fancy like the wild-dove's wing,
As innocent as it is bold.

With sympathies that have their birth
Where woman's best affections lie;
With hopes that hover o'er the earth,
But fix their resting-place on high.

And if, with all that thus exalts
A soul by sweet thoughts sanctified,
This dear one has her human faults,
They ever ‘lean to Virtue's side.’

1826.

193

ON A VIEW OF SPOLETO.

A scene such as we picture in our dreams:
Grey castled rocks, green woods, and glittering streams;
Mountains in massive grandeur towering high;
Spires gleaming in the soft Ausonian sky;
Groves, gardens, villas, in their rich array;
Majestic ruins, glorious in decay;
Marvels by Art and Nature jointly wrought—
And every stone instinct with teeming thought:
Such look'st thou, fair Spoleto!—And the Art
That through the eye speaks volumes to the heart,
Lifting the veil that envious distance drew,
Reveals thee, bathed in beauty, to our view;
Each feature so distinct—so freshly fair,
We almost seem to scent thy mountain air—
Breathing upon us from yon clump of pines,
Where the blithe goatherd 'mid his flock reclines.

How rich the landscape!—opening, as we look,
To many a sacred fane and sylvan nook;
While through the vale, by antique arches spanned,
The river, like some stream of Fairyland,
Pours its bright waters,—with deep solemn sound,
As if rehearsing to the rocks around
The tale of other times. Methinks I hear
Its dream-like murmur melting on the ear,—
Telling of mighty chiefs whose deeds sublime
Loom out gigantic o'er the gulfs of Time;
Of the stern African whose conquering powers
Recoiled abashed from these heroic towers;

194

Of him who, when Rome's glorious days were gone,
Built yon grim pile to prop his Gothic throne;
Of Belisarius, Narses—But 'twere vain
To weave such names into this idle strain;
These mouldering mounds their towering aims proclaim,
—The historic Muse hath given their acts to fame.

Spoleto! midst thy hills and storied piles,
Thy classic haunts and legendary aisles,
'Twere sweet, methinks, ere life hath passed away,
To spend one long, reflective summer's day;
Beneath those quiet shades my limbs to cast,
And muse o'er all that links thee to the past;
To linger on, through twilight's wizard hour,
Till the wan moon gleamed high o'er rock and tower,
And, with her necromantic lustre strange,
Lit up the landscape with a solemn change—
Gilding its grandeur into sad relief,
Like a pale widow stately in her grief.

So rose this scene on Rogers' classic eye—
And thus, embalmed in words that ne'er could die,
Its touching image had remained enshrined,
Had he to verse transferred it from his mind.
Far other fate awaits this rustic lay,
Framed for the passing purpose of a day:
Enough for me if he its tone commend
Whom 'tis a pride and grace to call my Friend.

1829.

195

VERSES, ON THE RESTORATION OF DESPOTISM IN SPAIN, IN 1823.

'Tis the old tale! perfidious wars,
And forts and fields for tyrants gain'd;
And kings, and emperors, and czars,
Colleagued to hold mankind enchain'd.

'Tis the old tale!—an abject race,
To wisdom, virtue, mercy blind,
Resumes the jealous despot's place,
Triumphant o'er man's soaring mind.

And Freedom's hopes again are crush'd,
All soil'd the flag she late unfurl'd,
Her song upon the mountains hush'd,—
While sullen gloom pervades the world.

And, one by one, each glorious light
Is quench'd at foul Oppression's nod,
Whose league unhallow'd courts the night,
To clinch the chain and ply the rod.

Thus sink the stars in sickening gloom,
And poisonous fogs the heavens infold,
When fiends and ghouls forsake the tomb,
Their hellish sacrament to hold!

196

And now, as erst in elder days,
The patriot earns a traitor's fame;
And Mina, like sad Brutus, says—
“Virtue is but an empty name!”

Alas, for Spain! that fiercely fought,
Nor vainly, 'gainst a nobler foe;
Now, by the Bourbon sold and bought,
And shamed and sunk without a blow.

Degraded Spain! a fitting fate
A waits her with her recreant chief;
Foul superstition, fraud, and hate,
And mockery amidst her grief.

Alas, for craven Italy!
That chants in Austria's iron cage
Her soft voluptuous minstrelsy,
To charm the brutal Vandal's rage.

And thou, betray'd, insulted Pole,
And Saxon of the Elbe and Rhine,
I see the iron pierce your soul,
The tears commingling with your wine.

I hear deep curses mutter'd low,
See fingers grasp the warrior's brand,
To burst the bondman's chain—But, no!
Ye have the heart without the hand.

But now my glance to England turns,
Whose beacon light, 'midst ocean set
Impregnable, for ever burns,
To tell where Freedom lingers yet.

197

And to that guardian Isle, the eye
Of fetter'd Europe fondly bends,
Waiting for England's battle cry
To rouse the earth's remotest ends.

And slumberest thou, my Native Land!
While Slaves and Despots league around?
Ah! where is Chatham's high command,
To bid thy warning trumpet sound?

And where is Chatham's mighty Son?
And he—the thunderbolt of war
That shiver'd all he struck upon—
The Chief of Nile and Trafalgar!

And where are Fox and Sheridan—
Of Freedom's friends were they the last?
Remains there not a living man
Still fit to sound that signal blast?

Yes, hark!—it sounds!—I hear it now—
And Britain rouses at the peal,
And binds the helmet on her brow,
And grasps once more the glittering steel

Her mighty voice is on the breeze—
Her martial step is on the plain—
Her flag's afloat upon the seas—
To bid the world be free again!

Uprise the nations at her call,—
As once they started with a bound
To hurl to earth the tyrant Gaul,
Who fiercely trod them to the ground.

198

But not, as then, to stoop their necks
Again beneath the despot's yoke;
And idly champ the curb—that checks
The fretful spirit it has broke.

No! Courts and Congresses must yield
To Nations bursting from their chain—
And, under Britain's guardian shield,
Law, Freedom, Truth, begin their reign.

1823.

THE REFUGEES.

'Tis Summer—'neath the brilliant sky
Of fair Castile or Italy.
The sighing breeze just stirs the bower,
Rich with the spoils of fruit and flower;
Above, the marble porch is gleaming;
Below, the sparkling fount is streaming:
And circling woodlands stretch their shade
O'er linpid stream and lawny glade.

It is a lovely spot; and there
Are happy hearts its joys to share:
Yon group that o'er the lakelet's brim
Watch where the swans in beauty swim;
And, there the sage released from toils,
The warrior won from battle broils.
The lady in her matron charms,
The laughing girl with clasping arms

199

Around her brother's neck,—and she
Who dandles on her dancing knee
The infant crowing wild with glee.

A graceful group—a joyous scene!—
But turn we now from what hath been,
And follow far that gentle band
In exile from their native land,
'Midst wreck of those who dared proclaim
To trampled nations Freedom's name.

It was their crime to hope too high
Of their fall'n country's destiny:
And villany was prompt and strong,
And England held her hand too long,
Till, quenched once more in blood and shame,
Expired fair Freedom's rising flame;
And now the remnant of her train
From Naples, Portugal, and Spain,
The high of heart, the fair, the young,
Like sea-weed by the waters flung,
Upon our British shores are lying—
For famine in our land are dying!

These lines were written in September, 1828, when the Spanish and Italian refugees in England were reduced to extreme destitution; and they were adapted to a picture in “Friendship's Offering,” and published there with the view of aiding, however humbly, the appeal then made in England for pecuniary support to them.

God of our fathers! and shall we
The offspring of the brave and free—
Of men who freely poured their veins
To ransom us from servile chains—
Shall we in this their evil day
From these sad exiles turn away?
From their despair our faces hide,
Besotted with our selfish pride,
And shut our sordid hearts and hands,
When man implores and God commands?

200

Oh, no! the thought I will not brook
That gentle eyes, which here may look
On pictured scene or poet's lay,
Will turn in apathy away,
While thus the stranger, at our gate,
Sinks destitute and desolate!
No! though the train of pampered pride
Pass by “upon the other side,”
As did the Pharisee of old,
Yet there are hearts of better mould
High throbbing in Old England's breast—
Ten thousand hearts that will not rest
Till they have succoured the distressed—
To whom even this brief hurried strain
I know will not appeal in vain:
And foremost of that generous band
Are they, the ladies of our land,
Whose bounty, like the dew of heaven,
Though silently is freely given.

Enough—the blush—the starting tear
Reveal the purpose nobly dear!
And see! the Exile's languid eyes
Are lightened up in glad surprise,
As, wakening from despair's wild trance,
Kind faces meet his wildered glance.
—Enough!—here let the curtain fall:
Hearts that can feel will picture all—
All that my verse may not unfold
Of meeting minds of generous mould.

Sept. 1828.

201

SPANIARDS, YIELD NOT TO DESPAIR.

[_]

(WRITTEN FOR MUSIC.)

Spaniards, yield not to despair!
Sink not, Portuguese, forlorn!
Wintry nights are worst to bear
Just before the break of morn.

Though down-trampled in the dust
By the traitor's cruel heel,
Freedom's cause ye hold in trust—
Falter not for rack or wheel.
Spaniards, yield not to despair!

Hunted from your native strand
By the Blood-hounds Hate and Fear,
Sink not yet, high-hearted band,
Retribution's hour is near.
Spaniards, yield not to despair!

Lo! yon perjured caitiff slaves,
While they clinch their country's chain,
Tremble even amidst the graves
Of the victims they have slain.
Spaniards, yield not to despair!

Let them tremble!—they have cause
Loudest when they rant and boast;
Freedom on her march may pause,
But her battle ne'er is lost.
Spaniards, yield not to despair!

202

Though the tyrant's bitter taunt
Sting you like a viper foul,
Though Despite and Famine gaunt
Like hyænas round you howl—
Spaniards, yield not to despair!

Though your dearest blood may flow,
On the scaffold or the plain,
Though your bravest be laid low
Ere their country rise again—
Spaniards, yield not to despair!

Ne'er in vain the patriot dies:
Pours he not life's fountain free
Servile millions to baptize
Proselytes of Liberty!
Spaniards, yield not to despair!

1829.

OUR NEIGHBOUR.

LUKE X. 29.

“Who is my neighbour?”—Selfishness replies,
“The man who best can aid your steps to rise;
The powerful—for whose favour all contend;
The wealthy—who may prove a useful friend;
The fashionable—whose notice is a grace;
In short, whoe'er is forward in the race
Of worldly honour. Such as lag behind,
The poor, th' oppressed, the wretched of mankind,—
If you are prudent, from their presence fly—
Leave them to Providence, and pass them by.”

203

MEMENTO.

My Son, be this thy simple plan:
Serve God, and love thy brother man;
Forget not in temptation's hour,
That Sin lends Sorrow double power;
Count life a stage upon thy way,
And follow Conscience, come what may:
Alike with heaven and earth sincere,
With hand, and brow, and bosom clear,
‘Fear God—and know no other fear.’

THE VALLEY OF HUMAN LIFE.

A FRAGMENT.

“O see ye not yon narrow road,
So thick beset with thorns and briars?
That is the path of Righteousness,
Though after it but few enquires.

“And see ye not that braid braid road,
That lies across that lily leven?
That is the path of Wickedness,
Though some call it the road to heaven.”
Old Ballad.

Methought a valley wild and wide,
With granite cliffs on either side
Embattled, stretched from sea to sea:
Old Ocean's voice came dreamily

204

From its dim openings east and west,
Where clouds and misty vapours rest:
And from beneath the eastern cloud
Of human kind a countless crowd,
Methought, were landing evermore,
Like seafowl flocking to the shore,
And up that vale incessant wending
In a train that had no ending.

Then, lifting up my eyes to view
The path this multitude pursue,
I straight beheld a giant mound
Stretching across the valley ground,
So high the eagle's wing would fail
Its sky-topt battlements to scale.
Soon by that rampart's frowning wall
I stood, and heard a herald's call;
While, like the current of a river,
The human tide rolled on for ever.

Two passages received that tide;
The one, a gateway large and wide,
Like a triumphal arch bestrode
The level highway, sweeping broad
Right through the rampart to the left:
The other, like some fissure cleft
By earthquake or volcanic fires,
All overgrown with thorns and briars,
Appeared so dismal, strange, and rude,
That of the countless multitude,
Methought, comparatively few
Sought there to find a passage through.

But by that rugged entrance stood
A herald, grave, yet mild of mood,

205

Proclaiming, in high solemn strain,
That all who peace and rest would gain,
Or 'scape the fierce Pursuer's wrath,
Must enter by the Narrow Path.
And, as he cried aloud, I saw
That many heard the voice with awe,
Hushed a brief space their boisterous din,
And turned, as if to enter in
By that rude portal; till amain
From the great gate some mirthful strain
Lured back their giddy hearts again.

Then, looking to the left, a blaze
Of dazzling lustre caught my gaze,
Where by the gate a lady sate,
In queenly guise, on throne of state:
She wore a crown of gems and gold;
Her robe was loose, her looks were bold;
And round her a voluptuous train
Of bacchanals and jugglers vain
Were dancing to a Lydian measure:
It was the court of Worldly Pleasure.
And thus unto the passing crowd
The cunning Sorceress cried aloud:—

“Heed not, my friends, the frantic call
Of that old maniac, by the wall!
The dismal chasm he calls a path
(A relic of some earthquake's wrath)
'Mong savage rocks and grottoes wending,
Must end—if it has any ending—
In some dark gulf or dreary bourne
Whence living wight shall ne'er return!

Come hither; this way bends the road,
Well-paved and pleasant, smooth and broad,

206

Which none but madmen would forsake
For yon wild track by cliff and brake.
Come hither; cast off foolish fear;
The Land of Pleasure lieth here.
Look through the gate: behold the bowers
Of citron, shedding fruits and flowers;
The groves of palm by limpid brooks;
The grottoes cool, the grassy nooks;
The banks where joyous groups recline,
With music solaced and with wine.
Come, enter freely the domain
Where I, indulgent empress, reign:
Each moment lost is wasted time,
Till you have gained that luscious clime:
Haste then, and every sense employ—
For life was given you to enjoy.”

The Enchantress thus: and, with a shout
Of high acclaim, the heedless rout
Pressed through the portal's mighty jaws.
Yet many made a doubtful pause,
And some (too few, alas! were they)
Recoiled, and took the Narrow Way.
The rest irresolutely stand,
Gazing on the delicious land
Within: yet blushing, as with shame,
To look on that seductive dame,
And those who danced around her throne
With drunken gait and loosened zone:
And oft, as if with sudden fright,
They glanced with terror to the right,
Whence rose the herald's warning cry—
“From the Betrayer hither fly!”

Then that Witch with smiling malice
Quickly seized a golden chalice,

207

And its charmèd mixture threw,
Sprinkling all that hapless crew—
Those alike who hasten in
And those who halt, but fly not sin—
“Thus,” she said, “I make you mine
By a sure baptismal sign!”
Then, submissive to her call,
Through the huge gate hurried all.

Soon or slow the fiendish spell
Wrought on all on whom it fell:
While I gazed, a fearful change
Came o'er all with aspect strange:
By degrees the human face
Lost each intellectual trace,
And the features took the cast
Of the bestial kind at last.
Yet still within the eyes there dwelt
A look as if the wretches felt
A hateful consciousness of harm,
Produced by that prevailing charm,
Which gave man's countenance divine
The expression of the wolf or swine.

208

LINES TO THE MEMORY OF THE REV. DR. WAUGH.

Whoe'er thou art whose eye may hither bend,
If thou art human, here behold a friend.
Art thou of Christ's disciples? He was one
Like him whose bosom Jesus leant upon.
Art thou a sinner burthened with thy grief?
His life was spent proclaiming sin's relief.
Art thou an unbeliever? He could feel
Much for the patient whom he could not heal.
Whate'er thy station, creed, condition be,
This man of God has cared and prayed for thee.

Do riches, honours, pleasures, smile around?
He would have shown thee where alone is found
Their true enjoyment—on the Christian plan
Of holiness to God and love to man.
Are poverty, disease, disgrace, despair,
The ills, the anguish to which flesh is heir,
Thy household inmates?—Yea, even such as thee
He hailed as brothers of humanity;
And gave his hand and heart, and toiled and pled,
Till nakedness was clothed and hunger fed;
Till pain was soothed, and even the fiend Despair
Confessed a stronger arm than his was there.

And ye far habitants of heathen lands,
For you he raised his voice and stretched his hands;
And taught new-wakened sympathy to start
With generous throb through many a British heart;

209

Till wide o'er farthest oceans waved the sail
That bade in Jesus' name the nations hail.
And Afric's wastes and wildered Hindostan
Heard the glad tidings of good will to man.

Such was his public ministry. And they
Through life who loved him till his latest day,
Of many a noble, gentle trait can tell,
That, as a man, friend, father, marked him well:
The frank simplicity; the cordial flow
Of kind affection; the enthusiast glow
That love of Nature or his Native Land
Would kindle in those eyes so bright and bland;
The unstudied eloquence that from his tongue
Fell like the fresh dews by the breezes flung
From fragrant woodlands; the benignant look
That like a rainbow beamed through his rebuke—
Rebuke more dreaded than a despot's frown,
For sorrow more than anger called it down;
The winning way, the kindliness of speech,
With which he wont the little ones to teach,
As round his chair like clustering doves they clung—
For, like his Master, much he loved the young.

These, and unnumbered traits like these, my verse
Could fondly dwell upon: but o'er his hearse
A passing wreath I may but stop to cast,
Of love and grateful reverence the last
Poor earthly token. Weeping mourners here
Perchance may count such frail memorial dear,
Though vain and valueless it be to him
Who tunes his golden harp amidst the seraphim!

1827.

210

A HYMN.

When morn awakes our hearts,
To pour the matin prayer;
When toil-worn day departs,
And gives a pause to care;
When those our souls love best
Kneel with us, in thy fear,
To ask thy peace and rest—
Oh God our Father, hear!

When worldly snares without,
And evil thoughts within,
Stir up some impious doubt,
Or lure us back to sin;
When human strength proves frail,
And will but half sincere;
When faith begins to fail—
Oh God our Father, hear!

When in our cup of mirth
The drop of trembling falls,
And the frail props of earth
Are crumbling round our walls;
When back we gaze with grief,
And forward glance with fear;
When faileth man's relief—
Oh God our Father, hear!

211

When on the verge we stand
Of the eternal clime,
And Death with solemn hand
Draws back the veil of Time;
When flesh and spirit quake
Before Thee to appear—
For the Redeemer's sake,
Oh God our Father, hear!

1830.

INSCRIPTION, FOR A TOMB-STONE IN THE BURIAL-GROUND AT DRYBURGH ABBEY.

A Scottish patriarch lies buried here;
An upright man, a Christian sincere;
A frugal husbandman of th' olden style,
Who lived and died near this monastic pile.
A stone-cast from this spot his dwelling stood;
His farm lay down the margin of the flood;
Those moss-grown abbey orchards filled his store,
Though now scarce blooms a tree he trained of yore;
Amidst these ivied cloisters hived his bees;
Here his young children gambolled round his knees;
And duly here, at morn and evening's close,
His solemn hymn of household worship rose.

His memory now hath perished from this place,
And over many lands his venturous race
Are scatter'd widely: some are in the grave;
Some still survive in Britain; ocean's wave
Hath wafted many to far Western woods
Laved by Ohio's and Ontario's floods:

212

Another band beneath the Southern skies
Have built their homes where Caffer mountains rise,
And taught wild Mancazana's willowy vale
The simple strains of Scottish Teviotdale.

A wanderer of the race, from distant climes
Revisiting this spot, hath penned these rhymes,
And raised this stone, to guard, in hallowed trust,
His kindred's memory and great-grandsire's dust;
Resting in hope, that at the Saviour's feet
They yet may re-unite, when Zion's pilgrims meet.

1830.