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!