XLVI.

EJACULATION.

GLORY to God! and to the Power who came
In filial duty, clothed with love divine,
That made his human tabernacle shine
Like Ocean burning with purpureal flame;
Or like the Alpine Mount, that takes its name
From roseate hues, far kenned at morn and

even,

In hours of peace, or when the storm is driven
Along the nether region's rugged frame!
Earth
prompts-Heaven urges; let us seek the
light,

Studious of that pure intercourse begun
When first our infant brows their lustre won;
So, like the Mountain, may we grow more
bright

From unimpeded commerce with the Sun,
At the approach of all-involving night.

XLVII. CONCLUSION.

WHY sleeps the future, as a snake enrolled,
Coil within coil, at noon-tide? For the WORD
Yields, if with unpresumptuous faith explored,
Power at whose touch the sluggard shall unfold
His drowsy rings. Look forth!-that Stream
behold,

THAT STREAM upon whose bosom we have passed

Floating at ease while nations have effaced
Nations, and Death has gathered to his fold
Long lines of mighty Kings-look forth, my
Soul!

(Nor in this vision be thou slow to trust)
The living Waters, less and less by guilt
Stained and polluted, brighten as they roll,
Till they have reached the eternal City-built
For the perfécted Spirits of the just!

ΤΟ

RYDAL MOUNT, Dec. 11, 1834.

I.

The following Stanzas are a memorial of a day passed with Sir Walter Scott, and other Friends visiting the Banks of the Yarrow under his guidance, immediately before his departure from Abbotsford, for Naples.

The title Yarrow Revisited will stand in no need of explanation, for Readers acquainted with the Author's previous poems suggested by that celebrated Stream.]

THE gallant Youth, who may have gained, Or seeks, a "winsome Marrow,"

Was but an Infant in the lap

When first I looked on Yarrow;
Once more, by Newark's Castle-gate
Long left without a warder,

I stood, looked, listened, and with Thee,
Great Minstrel of the Border!

Grave thoughts ruled wide on that sweet day,
Their dignity installing

In gentle bosoms, while sere leaves

Were on the bough, or falling:
But breezes played, and sunshine gleamed-
The forest to embolden;
Reddened the fiery hues, and shot
Transparence through the golden.
For busy thoughts the Stream flowed on
In foamy agitation;

And slept in many a crystal pool
For quiet contemplation:
No public and no private care
The freeborn mind enthralling,
We made a day of happy hours,
Our happy days recalling.

Brisk Youth appeared, the Morn of youth,
With freaks of graceful folly,-
Life's temperate Noon, her sober Eve,
Her Night not melancholy;
Past, present, future, all appeared
In harmony united,

Like guests that meet, and some from far,
By cordial love invited.

And if, as Yarrow, through the woods
And down the meadow ranging,
Did meet us with unaltered face,

Though we were changed and changing;
If, then, some natural shadows spread
Our inward prospect over,

The soul's deep valley was not slow
Its brightness to recover.

Eternal blessings on the Muse,
And her divine employment!

The blameless Muse, who trains her Sons
For hope and calm enjoyment;
Albeit sickness, lingering yet,

Has o'er their pillow brooded;
And Care waylays their steps-a Sprite
Not easily eluded.

For thee, O SCOTT! compelled to change
Green Eildon-hill and Cheviot
For warm Vesuvio's vine-clad slopes;
And leave thy Tweed and Tiviot
For mild Sorrento's breezy waves;
May classic Fancy, linking
With native Fancy her fresh aid,

Preserve thy heart from sinking!
O! while they minister to thee,
Each vying with the other,
May Health return to mellow Age

With Strength her venturous brother;
And Tiber, and each brook and rill
Renowned in song and story,
With unimagined beauty shine,
Nor lose one ray of glory!

For Thou, upon a hundred streams,
By tales of love and sorrow,
Of faithful love, undaunted truth,

Hast shed the power of Yarrow;
And streams unknown, hills yet unseen,
Wherever they invite Thee,
At parent Nature's grateful call,

With gladness must requite Thee.
A gracious welcome shall be thine,
Such looks of love and honour
As thy own Yarrow gave to me
When first I gazed upon her;
Beheld what I had feared to see,
Unwilling to surrender

eams treasured up from early days,
The holy and the tender.

And what, for this frail world, were all
That mortals do or suffer,
Did no responsive harp, no pen,
Memorial tribute offer?

Yea, what were mighty Nature s self?
Her features, could they win us,
Unhelped by the poetic voice

That hourly speaks within us?
Nor deem that localised Romance
Plays false with our affections;
Unsanctifies our tears-made sport
For fanciful dejections:
Oh, no! the visions of the past
Sustain the heart in feeling
Life as she is our changeful Life,
With friends and kindred dealing.

Bear witness, Ye, whose thoughts that day
In Yarrow's groves were centred;
Who through the silent portal arch

Of mouldering Newark enter'd;
And clomb the winding stair that once
Too timidly was mounted

By the "last Minstrel," (not the last!)
Ere he his Tale recounted.

Flow on for ever, Yarrow Stream!

Fulfil thy pensive duty,

Well pleased that future Bards should chant
For simple hearts thy beauty;

To dream-light dear while yet unseen,
Dear to the common sunshine,
And dearer still, as now I feel,

To memory's shadowy moonshine!

COMPOSED IN ROSLIN CHAPEL, DURING A
STORM.

THE wind is now thy organist ;-a clank
(We know not whence) ministers for a bell
To mark some change of service. As the swell
Of music reached its height, and even when

sank

VI.

THE TROSACHS. THERE'S not a nook within this solemn Pass, But were an apt confessional for One Taught by his summer spent, his autumn gone, That Life is but a tale of morning grass Withered at eve. From scenes of art which chase

That thought away, turn, and with watchful eyes

Feed it 'mid Nature's old felicities, Rocks, rivers, and smooth lakes more clear than glass Untouched, unbreathed upon. Thrice happy quest,

If from a golden perch of aspen spray
(October's workmanship to rival May)
The pensive warbler of the ruddy breast
That moral sweeten by a heaven-taught lay,
Lulling the year, with all its cares, to rest!

VII.

THE pibroch's note, discountenanced or mute;
The Roman kilt, degraded to a toy
Of quaint apparel for a half-spoilt boy;
The target mouldering like ungathered fruit;
The smoking steam-boat eager in pursuit,
As eagerly pursued; the umbrella spread
To weather-fend the Celtic herdsman's head-
All speak of manners withering to the root,
And of old honours, too, and passions high:
Then may we ask, though pleased that thought
should range

Among the conquests of civility,
Survives imagination-to the change
Superior? Help to virtue does she give?
If not, O Mortals, better cease to live!

271

SUGGESTED AT TYNDRUM IN A STORM.

And all that Greece and Italy have sung
ENOUGH of garlands, of the Arcadian crook,
Of Swains reposing myrtle groves among!
Ours couch on naked rocks, -will cross a brook
Swoln with chill rains, nor ever cast a look
This way or that, or give it even a thought
More than by smoothest pathway may be
brought

Into a vacant mind. Can written book
Teach what they learn? Up, hardy Moun.
taineer!

And guide the Bard, ambitious to be One
Of Nature's privy council, as thou art,
On cloud-sequestered heights, that see and hear
To what dread powers He delegates his part
On earth, who works in the heaven of heavens,
alone.

SEE what gay wild flowers deck this earthbuilt Cot,

Whose smoke, forth-issuing whence and how it may,

Shines in the greeting of the sun's first ray
Like wreaths of vapour without stain or blot.
The limpid mountain rill avoids it not;
And why shouldst thou?-If rightly trained
and bred,

Humanity is humble, finds no spot

Which her Heaven-guided feet refuse to tread. The walls are cracked, sunk is the flowery roof, Undressed the pathway leading to the door; But love, as Nature loves, the lonely Poor; Search, for their worth, some gentle heart wrong-proof,

Meek, patient, kind, and, were its trials fewer, Belike less happy.-Stand no more aloof!

XV.

THE HIGHLAND BROACH.

The exact resemblance which the old Broach (still in use, though rarely met with, among the Highlanders) bears to the Roman Fibula must strike every one, and concurs, with the plaid and kilt, to recal to mind the communication which the ancient Romans had with this remote country.

IF to Tradition faith be due,

And echoes from old verse speak true,
Ere the meek Saint, Columba, bore
Glad tidings to Iona's shore,
No common light of nature blessed
The mountain region of the west
A land where gentle manners ruled

O'er men in dauntless virtues schooled,
That raised, for centuries, a bar
Impervious to the tide of war:
Yet peaceful Arts did entrance gain
Where haughty Force had striven in vain ;
And, 'mid the works of skilful hands,
By wanderers brought from foreign lands
And various climes, was not unknown
The clasp that fixed the Roman Gown ;
The Fibula, whose shape, I ween,
Still in the Highland Broach is seen,
The silver Broach of massy frame,
Worn at the breast of some grave Dame
On road or path, or at the door
Of fern-thatched hut on heathy moor:
But delicate of yore its mould,
And the material finest gold;
As might beseem the fairest Fair,
Whether she graced a royal chair,
Or shed, within a vaulted hall,
No fancied lustre on the wall
Where shields of mighty heroes hung,
While Fingal heard what Ossian sung.
The heroic Age expired-it slept
Deep in its tomb:-the bramble crept
O'er Fingal's hearth; the grassy sod
Grew on the floors his sons had trod :
Malvina ! where art thou? Their state
The noblest-born must abdicate;
The fairest, while with fire and sword
Come Spoilers-horde impelling horde,
Must walk the sorrowing mountains, drest
By ruder hands in homelier vest.
Yet still the female bosom lent,
And loved to borrow, ornament;
Still was its inner world a place
Reached by the dews of heavenly grace;
Still pity to this last retreat

Clove fondly; to his favourite seat
Love wound his way by soft approach,
Beneath a massier Highland Broach.
When alternations came of rage
Yet fiercer, in a darker age;

And feuds, where, clan encountering clan,
The weaker perished to a man ;
For maid and mother, when despair
Might else have triumphed, baffling prayer,
One small possession lacked not power,
Provided in a calmer hour,

To meet such need as might befal-
Roof, raiment, bread, or burial:
For woman, even of tears bereft,
The hidden silver Broach was left.

As generations come and go
Their arts, their customs, ebb and flow;
Fate, fortune, sweep strong powers away,
And feeble, of themselves, decay;
What poor abodes the heir-loom hide,
In which the castle once took pride!
Tokens, once kept as boasted wealth,
If saved at all, are saved by stealth.
Lo! ships, from seas by nature barred,
Mount along ways by man prepared;
And in far-stretching vales, whose streams
Seek other seas, their canvas gleams.
Lo! busy towns spring up, on coasts
Thronged yesterday by airy ghosts;
Soon, like a lingering star forlorn
Among the novelties of morn,