The dewy ground was dark and cold;
Behind, all gloomy to behold;
And stepping westward seem'd to be
A kind of heavenly destiny:

I liked the greeting; 'twas a sound
Of something without place or bound;
And seemed to give me spiritual right
To travel through that region bright.

The voice was soft, and she who spake Was walking by her native Lake:

The salutation had to me

The very sound of courtesy:

Its power was felt; and while my eye
Was fixed upon the glowing sky,
The echo of the voice enwrought

A human sweetness with the thought
Of travelling through the world that lay
Before me in my endless way.

XVII.

GLEN-ALMAIN,

OR THE

NARROW GLEN.

In this still place, remote from men,
Sleeps Ossian, in the NARROW GLEN;
In this still place, where murmurs on
But one meek Streamlet, only one :
He sang of battles, and the breath

Of stormy war, and violent death;

And should, methinks, when all was past,

Have rightfully been laid at last

Where rocks were rudely heaped, and rent

As by a spirit turbulent;

Where sights were rough, and sounds were wild,

And every thing unreconciled;

In some complaining, dim retreat,

For fear and melancholy meet;

But this is calm; there cannot be

A more entire tranquillity.

Does then the Bard sleep here indeed? Or is it but a groundless creed?

What matters it?-I blame them not

Whose Fancy in this lonely Spot

Was moved; and in this way express'd Their notion of its perfect rest.

A Convent, even a hermit's Cell

Would break the silence of this Dell:

It is not quiet, is not ease;

But something deeper far than these:
The separation that is here

Is of the grave; and of austere
And happy feelings of the dead:
And, therefore, was it rightly said
That Ossian, last of all his race!
Lies buried in this lonely place.

VOL. I.

NOTES TO VOLUME I.

Page 48-Poem of the Highland Boy. It is recorded in Dampier's Voyages that a Boy, the Son of a Captain of a Man of War, seated himself in a Turtle-shell and floated in it from the shore to his Father's Ship, which lay at anchor at the distance of half a mile. Upon the suggestion of a Friend, I have substituted such a Shell for that less elegant vessel in which my blind voyager did actually intrust himself to the dangerous current of Loch Levin, as was related to me by an Eye-witness.

Page 235.-To the Daisy. This Poem, and two others to the same Flower, were written in the year 1802; which is mentioned because in some of the ideas, though not in the manner in which those ideas are connected, and likewise even in some of the expressions, they bear a striking resemblance to a Poem (lately published) of Mr. Montgomery, entitled, a Field Flower. This being said, Mr. Montgomery will not think any apology due to him; I cannot however help addressing him in the words of the Father of English Poets.

Though it happe me to rehersin

• That ye han in your freshe songis saied,
Forberith me, and beth not ill apaied,

Sith that ye se I doe it in the honour

' Of Love, and eke in service of the Flour.'

Note published in the Year 1808.