Poems on various subjects :: :: University of Virginia Library

I own that I'm poor and devoted to shame,
The outcast and scorn of the earth,
For my kindred no titled oppressors I claim
Whose vices are charter'd by birth.
Yet while with the feelings of Nature at war
They bend to proud Custom the knee,
Tho' I'm mean and unnotic'd, I'm happier by far—
As the gate of the mountain I'm free.

I heedlessly rove o'er the heath-cover'd hill
And the mild blowing breezes inhale,
I listlessly stray near the devious rill
As it winds to the far distant vale.
As long as wild Nature can give me delight
I reck not the Lordlings' decree,
The joy that She wakens I claim as my right
While as gales of the mountain I'm free.

Some worldlings may toil for the misery of wealth,
Thro' the maze of corruption and art;

More than riches I value the mind's placid health,
Than Fame a susceptible heart.
For the wretched, 'tis true, I've a pitiful store,
Yet I share all my little with glee,
And perchance were I rich I should covet the more,
Nor as gales of the mountain be free.

I'm friendless, and scarcely am rank'd with mankind,
Friendship shrinks from the desolate heart,
Misfortune can cancel the bonds of the mind,
And a tear is a signal—to part!
I care not!—for Virtue I ever will claim,
Though I'm poor, She's a fortune to me;
She shall still be my friend tho' the world I disclaim,
While as gales of the mountain I'm free.

Though death be a dread to the king titled slave,
He soon must experience its blow;
While with torture and anguish he sinks to the grave,
And is laid with a mockery of woe.
I forgotten will cheerfully mix with the clod
That is welcome to Sorrow and me,
And the primrose and hare-bell shall spring on the sod,
And the gale of the mountain blow free.