Lines WRITTEN WITH A PENCIL OVER THE CHIMNEYPIECE IN THE PARLOUR OF THE INN AT KENMORE, TAYMOUTH. ADMIRING Nature in her wildest grace, The outstretching lake, embosom'd 'mong the hills, The lawns, wood-fringed in Nature's native taste ; * Poetic ardours in my bosom swell, Lone wandering by the hermit's mossy cell : The sweeping theatre of hanging woods! The incessant roar of headlong tumbling floods. * * * * Here Poesy might wake her Heaven-taught lyre, her scan, And injured Worth forget and pardon man. * Verses ON AN EVENING VIEW OF THE RUINS OF LINCLUDEN ABBEY. YE holy walls, that, still sublime, As through your ruins, hoar and gray- Each Gothic ornament display. The high-arch'd windows, painted fair, Show many a saint and martyr there. As on their slender forms I gaze, 'Tis the fair, spotless, vestal train, That seek in prayer the midnight fane. Whose tones the echoing aisles prolong; Each worldly thought a while forbear, And mutter forth a half-form'd prayer. But, as I gaze, the vision fails, Like frost-work touch'd by southern gales; The altar sinks, the tapers fade, And all the splendid scene's decay'd; In window fair the painted pane No longer glows with holy stain, Lincluden Abbey. But through the broken glass the gale Her home these aisles and arches high! |