ASHESTIEL, ETTRICK FOREST. LIKE April morning clouds, that pass, Now in a torrent racing forth, 1 William Erskine, Esq., advocate, Sheriff-depute of the Orkneys, became a Judge of the Court of Session by the title of Lord Kinnedder, and died at Edinburgh in August 1822. He had been from early youth the most intimate Now winding slow its silver train, And almost slumbering on the plain; And pleased, we listen as the breeze Heaves its wild sigh through Autumn trees; Then, wild as cloud, or stream, or gale, Flow on, flow unconfined, my Tale! Need I to thee, dear Erskine, tell I love the license all too well, Oft, when 'mid such capricious chime, Some transient fit of lofty rhyme To thy kind judgment seem'd excuse For many an error of the muse, Oft hast thou said, "If, still mis-spent, of the Poet's friends, and his chief confidant and adviser as to all literary matters. See a notice of his life and character by the late Mr. Hay Donaldson, to which Sir Walter Scott contributed several paragraphs. Go, and to tame thy wandering course, Approach those masters, o'er whose tomb Instructive of the feebler bard, Still from the grave their voice is heard; From them, and from the paths they show'd, Choose honour'd guide and practised road; Nor ramble on through brake and maze, With harpers rude of barbarous days. "Or deem'st thou not our later time Yields topic meet for classic rhyme? Hast thou no elegiac verse For Brunswick's venerable hearse? T To save in that presumptuous hour, And snatch'd the spear, but left the shield! And, tried in vain, 'twas thine to die. Ill had it seem'd thy silver hair The last, the bitterest pang to share, For honour'd life an honour'd close; And when revolves, in time's sure change, Some new Arminius shall awake, Her champion, ere he strike, shall come "Or of the Red-Cross hero' teach Its votaries to the shatter'd walls, Which the grim Turk, besmear'd with blood, Against the Invincible made good; Or that, whose thundering voice could wake 1 Sir Sidney Smith. |