And when my wand'ring days are fled,
I'll seek again my native stream;
If kind affection be not dead,
And Fancy yield no pleasing dream.
For oft the world's untoward ways
Have power the glowing heart to chill;
To quench Imagination's blaze;
And Hope's unwary blossom kill.
Deign to preserve me, Virtue, deign
To save me from desponding care;
Till, daly disciplin'd, I gain
The palm thy faithful servants wear.
IDYLLION, Occasioned by the DRAWING of a CASCADE in STIRLING SHIRE, executed by a LADY of distinguished RANK.
The woody islands, the resounding caves,
And rocks that Lomond's hoary billow laves *.
Th' Endrick in wildly-lyric mood
Displays her laurel crown;
And tells, that, musing by her flood,
Sage Napier earn'd renown:
That oft she paus'd, and mark'd at midnight hour,
The pale lamp glimm'ring in his ivy'd tower.
Triumphant ev'n the yellow Blane,
Tho' by a fen defac'd,
Boasts that Buchanan's early strain
Consol'd her troubled breast:
That often, muse-struck, in her loneliest nook,
The orphan boy por'd on some metred book.
Poor Dowalt grieves: no joyful strains
Flow from her trembling wire :
All unrenown'd the Naïd plains
Amid her sister choir:
Yet who can boast of dells so sweetly wild,
Or ivy'd grey-rocks more abruptly pil'd!
How deeply-ton'd the white cascade,
Whirl'd by her rapid streams,
That roars amid the cavern'd glade,
And thro' the green-wood gleams!
Yet mid the nightly gloom the sobbing gale
Swells with the murmur of her lonely wail.
Her heath-crown withers on her brow;
And uninscrib'd her urn.-
Change, Naïd, change thy tone of woc;
Cease, Naïd, cease to mourn!
Soon to thy sister nymphs wilt thou proclaim,
That thou hast earn'd an equal share of fame.
*On the side of the Leven is erected a pillar near the birth-place of Dr. Smollet. This river issues from Loch Lomond, into which falls the river Endrick, running through Strath Endrick, close to the ruins of an old castle, in which Napier of Merchiston is said to have resided when he invented the Logarithms. This river receives the Blane, on
the side of which the celebrated George Buchanan was born, and near which an obelisk has been erected to his memory. Having lost his parents in his infancy, Buchanan was educated by G. Heriot, his maternal uncle. The Dowalt enters the Blane near its junction with the Endrick.
For M** with eye of taste
Hath seen; with touch of skill
Hath seiz'd thee, mid thy woody waste,
And rushing down thy hill:
Hath seen thy dewy tresses wave aloft ;
Surpris'd, and held thee by compulsion soft:
Hath seen thy white robe, gem'd with pearl,
Flow from the rugged steep;
Where Dryads their green flags unfurl,
And thro' the valley sweep:
Stay, Naïd, at her powerful bidding stay!
And well I ween, thou will not haste away.
For by her pencil's magic power
She bids thy beauty live:
Now, Dowalt, bless th' auspicious hour!
Now, Dowalt, cease to grieve;
But to the choir of elder nymphs proclaim,
That noble M*** hath given thee fame.
On an UNFORTUNATE and BEAUTIFUL WOMAN.
[From the second Volume of POEMS by the Rev. WM. LISLE BOWLES.]
And slow disease prey'd on thy wasted frame;
When every friend, e'en like thy bloom, was fled,
And want bow'd low thy unsupported head;
Sure sad Humanity a tear might give,
And Virtue say, "Live beauteous sufferer, live!"
But should there ONE be found, (amidst the few,
Who with compassion thy last pangs might view)
One who beheld thy errors with a tear,
To whom the ruins of thy heart were dear,
Who fondly hop'd, the ruthful season past,
Thy faded virtues might revive at last;
Should such be foundOh! when he saw thee lie,
Closing on ev'ry earthly hope thine eye;
When he beheld despair, with rueful trace,
Mark the strange features of thy alter'd face;
When he beheld, as painful death drew nigh,
Thy pale, pale check, thy feebly-lifted eye,
Thy chill shrunk hand, hung down as in despair,
Or slowly rais'd with many a mutter'd pray'r;
When thus, in early youth, he saw thee bend
Poor to the grave, and die without a friend;
Some sadder feelings might unbidden start,
And more than common pity touch his heart!
Th' eventful scene is clos'd-with pausing dread
And sorrow, I drew nigh the silent bed-
Thy look was calm-thy heart was cold and still,
As if the world had never us'd it ill:
Methought the last faint smile, with traces weak,
Still seem'd to linger on thy faded cheek:
Poor ****! though most beauteous in thy face
Ere sorrow touch'd it, beam'd each lovely grace;
Yet, oh, thy living features never wore
A look so sweet, so eloquent before;
As this, which bids all human passions cease,
And tells my pitying heart, "YOU DIED IN PEACE!"
NOME, lovely Evening, with thy smile of peace
Visit my humble dwelling, welcom❜d in
Not with loud shouts, and the throng'd city's din,
But with such sounds as bid all tumult cease
Of the sick heart; the grasshopper's faint pipe
Beneath the blades of dewy grass unripe,
The bleat of the lone lamb, the carol rude
Heard indistinctly from the village green,
The bird's last twitter from the hedge-row scene,
Where, just before, the scatter'd crumbs I strew'd,
To pay him for his farewell song-all these
Touch soothingly the troubled ear, and please
The stilly-stirring fancies-though my hours
(For I have droop'd beneath life's early show'rs)
Pass lonely oft, and oft my heart is sad,
Yet I can leave the world, and feel most glad
To meet thee, Evening, here-here my own hand
Has deck'd with trees and shrubs the slopes around,
And whilst the leaves by dying airs are fann'd,
Sweet to my spirit comes the farewell sound,
That seems to say-" Forget the transient tear,
Thy pale youth shed-Repose and Peace are here."
WINTER EVENING at HOME.
[From the Same.]
FAR sharp December, through my cottage pane
AIR Moon, who at the chilly day's decline
Dost lovely look, smiling, though in thy wane;
In thought, to scenes, tranquil and bright as thine,
Wanders my heart, whilst I by turns survey
Thee slowly wheeling on thy ev'ning way;
And this my fire, whose dim, unequal light,
Just glimmering, bids each shadowy image fall
Sombrous and strange upon the dark'ning wall,
Ere the long Evening sets in deepest night!
Yet thy still orb, seen through the freezing haze,
Shines calm and clear without and whilst I gaze,
I think-around me in this twilight room-
I but remark mortality's sad gloom;
Whilst hope, and joy, cloudless and soft appear
In the sweet beam that lights thy distant sphere!
MONODY on the DEATH of Dr. WARTON,
H! I should ill thy gen'rous cares requite,
Thou who didst first inspire my timid muse,
Could I one tuneful tear to thee refuse,
Now that thine aged eyes are clos'd in night,
Poor WARTON!-Thou hast strok'd my stripling head,
And sometimes, mingling kind reproof with praise,'
My path hast best directed through the maze
Of thorny life-by thee my steps were led
To that romantic valley, high o'erhung
With sable woods, where many a minstrel rung
His bold harp to the sweeping waterfall,
Whilst Fancy lov'd around each form to call
That fill the poet's dream: to this retreat
Of Fancy, (won by whose enticing lay
I have forgot how sunk the summer's day)
Thou first didst guide my not unwilling feet;
Meantime inspiring the gay breast of youth
With love of taste, with science, and with truth,
The first inciting sounds of human praise,
A parent's love excepted, came from THEE;
And but for thee, perhaps, my boyish days
Had all pass'd idly, and whate'er in me
Now live of hope, been buried.
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