Original poems on several subjects :: :: University of Virginia Library

Hail, tragic bard! still while esteem remains
For nature painted in the purest strains;
While sentiments express'd with native ease,
And elegant simplicity can please;
While poesy and taste maintain their cause,
Douglas shall live the subject of applause.

How Agis shines, drawn by thy faithful pen,
The greatest, wisest, and the best of men!
When sacred Freedom fires his glowing breast,
Each less exalted gen'rous aim supprest;
How does he rise, deserted and alone,
Superiour to the grandeur of a throne,
Unsooth'd by Pleasure's fascinating voice,
The coward's boast, the slave's ignoble choice!
Proud Cæsar, seated in triumphal car,
Amid the trophies and the spoils of war,
While adoration crouds almost bestow,
Exhibits to mankind a meaner show.

238

Britain, awake; a finish'd picture see,
Drawn by the Muse's happiest art, for thee;
Not merely to amuse, but to inspire
With virtuous zeal, and patriotic fire.
To rouse from sloth thy once heroic race,
Sloth, still the harbinger of quick disgrace;
Rouse them, at Glory's oft-repeated call,
To live like heroes, or like heroes fall.
Britain!—too much resembling Sparta's state,
When few had the ambition to be great;
When luxury, intemperance, and ease,
Had only the successful power to please;
When Party and Corruption, with deep stealth,
Plann'd basely to o'erturn the Commonwealth.
May such Plays only grace the British stage,
As tend to better and improve the age;
Tend, by each manly, noble, lib'ral art,
To fire the genius, and enlarge the heart;
Which heroes, and which patriots may admire,
Virtue approve, and Liberty inspire.

Now Caledonia lifts her aged head,
Long buried with the literary dead,
And, from the slumber of a hundred years,
Upon the top of Helicon appears.

239

She comes, to greet you her peculiar son,
To hail your race of glory now begun,
Such glory as Parnassian laurels claim,
Beyond the honours of a titled name.

Long Scotia's sons were famous in the field,
For might and prowess that could never yield.
Immortal trophies long adorn'd her land,
Nobly achiev'd by Valour's stoutest hand.
Through distant nations spread her martial name,
And Scotia and renown were still the same.
Scarce did her children leave the dandling knee,
By Nature warlike, as by Nature free,
When ev'ry little hand essay'd to wield
The spear, or train the courser for the field;
Anon to lead forth armies on the foe,
Conquest and death attending ev'ry blow.
No music could transport them but alarms,
No exercise was popular but arms.
The wretch that liv'd in indolence and ease,
Whom dangers could affright, and softness please;
Was fain to deserts from mankind to fly,
In senseless glooms to shun the public eye.
But though for warriours, vet'ran warriours, fam'd,
Few favourites there the gentle Muses claim'd;

240

Save the restorer of the classic phrase,
Whose eulogy has half exhausted praise .
Save Johnston, not ungratefully here past,
Nor Thomson, whose fresh laurels ever last.
Nor virtuous Blacklock, though depriv'd of sight,
And shrouded in the rayless gloom of night,
To whose soul Reason shines with purest rays,
And mental Beauty's ev'ry charm displays.
But now her name, wide as her conquests flew,
Shall boundless spread, spread by the Muse and You.

Buchanan.