Whose hills sublime with plaintive music sound,
Whose daring sons in every clime are found;
From wood-crown'd Tweed, from Clyde, and
wand'ring Quair,
And Roslin's ancient towers, the train repair!
Welcome, ye sons of song! to this green isle,
Where mountains tow'r, and fertile valleys smile,
Where fountains gush, and streams of crystal rove,
And beauteous scenes dispose the heart to love.
Bide, gentle guests! within my peaceful bowers,
Become companions of my lonely hours;
Nor cares, nor sorrows, nor the frost of age,
Can chill my bosom to poetic rage.
Yes, when the crowding past my bosom wounds,
I find a balm in concord of sweet sounds;
I feel the charm that rising hopes impart,
Again, their blandishments possess my heart:
And while I think, that, in this vale of care,
My fairest hopes have faded to despair,
A moment cheers me with illusions bright,
For years abandon'd in unvaried night;
My tender olives, rising fair, I see,
And feel that Hope has pleasures yet for me *.
I hail the happy race, the cultur'd plain,
Where fair Refinement spreads her golden reign;
And mind pursue, through many a rolling age,
From the rude hunter to the patriot sage +.
Again, I see the forms august ascend,
In visions bright, that Poesy attend!
With gay caparisons, and prancing steeds,
And shields of quaint device, a band proceeds,
Appalling flashes from their burnish'd mail,
Like meteors, bid the oppressor's courage fail;
* Alluding to the Pleasures of Hope, by Mr. Campbell.
The Progress of Refinement, by the Rev. William Gillespie.
Along thy margent, Thames, sedate they wind
The human tiger shrinks, and is in chains confin'd*.
And now the mind, with hurried flight, I save
From hated Melancholy's witching cave + :-
Oh dread enchantress! well I know thy seat,
Thy snares entangled oft my wand'ring feet.
But now, appall'd, I see the War-Fiend lead The blood-stain'd conqueror's foot thro' paths of dread:
He sinks, he sinks, to find his just reward,
Not such the glories of the immortal Bard‡.
I hear a poet tell, in varied song,
The fates and duties of the tuneful throng;
Now sportive, light, he comes with airy tread,
Now grave and moral, as the prospects lead ;
And calls the bards, from every age and clime,
To mix in social converse through the rhyme§.
The tuneful maid I hail from winding Forth,
Who female sweetness joins to manly worth,
And, while her muse the guilty laurel sings,
By blood-stain'd myriads wreath'd for frantic kings,
Humanely wise, beholds with temperate ray,
The dazzling things that lead the crowd astray |.
Undaunted, now, she roams the wizard cave,
She scales the crag where deafening billows rave,
Or hears, at midnight hour, the mutter'd spell
Convoke the shrouded dead, and forms of hell ¶.
* Alludes to Runny Mead,-Professor Richardson's Poems and
Plays.
+ The Progress of Melancholy.
The War-Fiend, and Bard, Dr. Thomas Brown's Poems. Alludes to Pictures of Poetry, by Alexander Thomson, Esq. intended as part of a View of the Progress of Polite Literature,
Alludes to Poems by Miss Bannerman, particularly a poem on an illumination for a naval victory, admirable for the justness of thought and goodness of heart that run through it.
Tales of Superstition and Chivalry.
If Heav'n will grant an idle poet's prayer,
May Sorrow shun the gentle, good, and fair,
The web of Poetry be round thee cast,
To shield thee from Misfortune's bitter blast.
That chord is silent,-and, in lively strain,
A bard with fancy frolics o'er the plain;
With artless grace he tunes the native song,
To joys and pastimes of the rustic throng *.
And now from pity genius learns the strain
Of moral warning to the simple swain ;
And while it seems to flow devoid of art,
I hail the effusion of a patriot's heart;
The scaith of Erin and of Scotia mourn,
And sigh that Will and Jeannie sink forlorn;
Then drop a tear for those that wander far,
Thro' scenes of blood, and all the woes of wart.
Soft sounds the lyre, the tender notes I hear,
Domestic virtues lean a grateful ear,
And parted angels, from their spheres, approve
The verse to friendship given, and wedded love‡.
To thee, my friend, be granted length of days
In social converse, and Pierian praise;
With serious elegance, or polish'd mirth,
The smiling circle, the domestic hearth.
Howe'er, at first, the embodied mental band
Flash into being from their Maker's hand,
Ere yet confin'd within this carthly frame,
Some spirits are allied in kindred flame;
Some spark congenial, some fraternal tie,
Attends the circumstance of birth on high;
* Alluding to Poems, chiefly in the Scottish dialect, by the Rev. James Nicol, particularly the Kirn Supper, &c.
Alluding to the beautiful Poems, Scotland's Scaith, and the Waes of War,-Poetical Works of Hector Macneill, Esq.
Verses, Social and Domestic, by Geo. Hay Drummond, A. M.
Tho' cloth'd in mortal weeds they wander wide
Tho' fortune sep'rates, and tho' seas divide,
Still the primordial traces they retain,
The loves, the likeness, of a kindred train;
And when they meet, a moment will appear
Like the long intercourse of many a year.
By such alliance, I thy friendship claim;
I trace the pedigree of kindred aim;
And, when I seek that undiscover'd bourn,
Around my bier when weeping children mourn,
Shouldst thou survive, thou wilt not then refuse
Thy friendship to the children of my muse;
Thy care, a pledge of kindred, I demand,
And may they grow mature beneath thy hand.
Yet, what are rhymes? and wherefore should they
An anxious moment, in a world of care?
Borne in the current of a mighty flood,.
That wafts alike the vicious and the good,
Why should we catch at straws and leaves that flow
Along the surface, while we sink below?
GLOUCESTER STREET, DUBLIN, August 8, 1806.
FROM THE FRENCH OF MÎLE SCUDERY.
THE stream as it glides softly-kissing the shore,
The rose that expands to the Zephyr its treasures,
The gale as it plays the light foliage o'er,
All say that to love is the sweetest of pleasures.
Oh happy the pair beneath Cupid's controul !
Of mutual affection the charm doubly-blesses !
The cold and indifferent have only one soul,
But two the fond lover triumphant possesses.
ADDRESS TO THE RIVER TWEED,
On Mr. Scott having chosen his Habitation near its Bunks.
TWEED, thou wert charm'd by seldom equal'd strains
When tender*RAMSEY tun'd his Doric quills;
Or + HE, the Child and Glory of those plains
That hear the swol'n † AYR thunder down the hills.
Since oft they left their native scenes to rove
Where thy devolving waters wind the vales;
And pour'd, to consecrate each field and grove,
Lays of wild poesy on all the gales.
But now a BARD, whom loftier MUSES fire,
Loud, on the shores of thy cerulean stream,
Wakes as exalted and as sweet a lyre
As ever rung to youthful Poet's theme.
Inemulous of § LYDIA's boasted tide,
Thy hallow'd wave in Delphic light expands;
And thou, in purer glory, may'st deride
PACTOLUS, rolling o'er his golden sands.
* ALLEN RAMSEY, the famous Scotch Poet, whose pastoral Drama, THE GENTLE SHEPHERD, is so dear to every Reader of
LYDIA, a Country of the lesser Asia, the domain of CRESUS, who is supposed to have amassed exhaustless wealth from the bed of its celebrated River, PACTOLUS.
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