The Poetical Works of David Macbeth Moir Edited by Thomas Aird: With A Memoir of the Author |
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 | The Poetical Works of David Macbeth Moir |  |
IV.
Now Ednam lay before me—there it lay—
No more phantasmagorial; but the thought
Of Thomson vanished, nor would coalesce
And mingle with the landscape, as the dawn
Melts in the day, or as the cloud-fed stream
Melts in the sea, to be once more exhaled
In vapours, and become again a cloud.
For why? Let deep psychologists explain—
For me a spell was broken: this I know,
And nothing more besides, that this was not
My Poet's birth-place—earth etherealised
And spirit-hued—the creature of my dreams,
By fancy limn'd; but quite an alien scene,
Fair in itself—if separate from him—
Fair in itself, and only for itself
Seeking our praises or regard. The clue
Of old associations was destroyed—
A leaf from Pleasure's volume was torn out—
And, as the fairy frost-work leaves the grass,
While burns the absorbing red ray of the morn,
A tract of mental Eden was laid waste,
Never to blossom more!
No more phantasmagorial; but the thought
Of Thomson vanished, nor would coalesce
And mingle with the landscape, as the dawn
Melts in the day, or as the cloud-fed stream
Melts in the sea, to be once more exhaled
In vapours, and become again a cloud.
For why? Let deep psychologists explain—
For me a spell was broken: this I know,
And nothing more besides, that this was not
My Poet's birth-place—earth etherealised
And spirit-hued—the creature of my dreams,
By fancy limn'd; but quite an alien scene,
Fair in itself—if separate from him—
Fair in itself, and only for itself
Seeking our praises or regard. The clue
Of old associations was destroyed—
A leaf from Pleasure's volume was torn out—
And, as the fairy frost-work leaves the grass,
While burns the absorbing red ray of the morn,
213
Never to blossom more!
Alone I stood,
By that sweet hamlet lonely and serene,
Gazing around me in the glowing light
Of noon, while overhead the rapturous lark
Soared as it sung, less and less visible,
Till but a voice 'mid heaven's engulfing blue.
No scene could philosophic life desire
More tranquil for its evening; nor could love,
Freed from ambition, for enjoyment seek
A holier haunt of sequestration calm.
Yet though the tones and smiles of Nature bade
The heart rejoice, a shadow overspread
My musings—for a fairy-land of thought
Had melted in the light of common day.
A moment's truth had disenchanted years
Of cherished vision: Ednam, which before
Spoke to my spirit as a spell, was now
The index to a code of other thoughts;
And turning on my heel—a poorer man
Than morning looked on me—I sighed to think
How oft our joys depend on ignorance!
By that sweet hamlet lonely and serene,
Gazing around me in the glowing light
Of noon, while overhead the rapturous lark
Soared as it sung, less and less visible,
Till but a voice 'mid heaven's engulfing blue.
No scene could philosophic life desire
More tranquil for its evening; nor could love,
Freed from ambition, for enjoyment seek
A holier haunt of sequestration calm.
Yet though the tones and smiles of Nature bade
The heart rejoice, a shadow overspread
My musings—for a fairy-land of thought
Had melted in the light of common day.
A moment's truth had disenchanted years
Of cherished vision: Ednam, which before
Spoke to my spirit as a spell, was now
The index to a code of other thoughts;
And turning on my heel—a poorer man
Than morning looked on me—I sighed to think
How oft our joys depend on ignorance!
| The Poetical Works of David Macbeth Moir | |