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Nor skilled one flame alone to fan:
His country's high-souled peasantry
What patriot-pride he taught !-how much
To weigh the inborn worth of man!
And rustic life and poverty

Grow beautiful beneath his touch.

Him in his clay-built cot, the Muse
Entranced, and showed him all the forms,
Of fairy-light and wizard gloom,
(That only gifted Poet views,)
The Genii of the floods and storms,
And martial shades from Glory's tomb.

On Bannock-field what thoughts arouse
The swain whom Burns's song inspires!
Beat not his Caledonian veins,
As o'er the heroic turf he ploughs,
With all the spirit of his sires,

And all their scorn of death and chains?

And see the Scottish exile, tanned

By many a far and foreign clime,

Bend o'er his home-born verse, and weep

In memory of his native land,

With love that scorns the lapse of time,
And ties that stretch beyond the deep.

Encamped by Indian rivers wild,
The soldier resting on his arms,
In Burns's carol sweet recalls

The scenes that bless'd him when a child,
And glows and gladdens at the charms,
Of Scotia's woods and waterfalls.

O deem not, 'midst this worldly strife,
An idle art the Poet brings :
Let high Philosophy control,

And sages calm, the stream of life,
'Tis he refines its fountain-springs,
The nobler passions of the soul.

It is the Muse that consecrates.
The native banner of the brave,
Unfurling at the trumpet's breath,
Rose, thistle, harp; 'tis she elates
To sweep the field or ride the wave,
A sunburst in the storm of death.

And thou, young hero, when thy pall
Is crossed with mournful sword and plume,
When public grief begins to fade,

And only tears of kindred fall,

Who but the Bard shall dress thy tomb,
And greet with fame thy gallant shade!

Such was the soldier-Burns, forgive
That sorrows of mine own intrude
In strains to thy great memory due.
In verse like thine, oh! could he live,
The friend I mourned-the brave-the good-
Edward that died at Waterloo ! *

Farewell, high chief of Scottish song!
That couldst alternately impart
Wisdom and rapture in thy page,

And brand each vice with satire strong,
Whose lines are mottoes of the heart,
Whose truths electrify the sage.

Farewell! and ne'er may Envy dare
To wring one baleful poison drop
From the crushed laurels of thy bust:
But while the lark sings sweet in air,
Still may the grateful pilgrim stop,

To bless the spot that holds thy dust.

Major Edward Hodge, of the 7th Hussars, who fell at the head of his squadron, in the attack of the Polish Lancers.

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Still seem, as to my childhood's sight,

A midway station given

For happy spirits to alight

Betwixt the earth and heaven.

Can all that optics teach, unfold
Thy form to please me so,

As when I dreamt of gems and gold
Hid in thy radiant bow!

When Science from Creation's face
Enchantment's veil withdraws,
What lovely visions yield their place
To cold material laws!

And yet, fair bow, no fabling dreams,
But words of the Most High,
Have told why first thy robe of beams
Was woven in the sky.

When o'er the green undeluged earth Heaven's covenant thou didst shine, How came the world's gray fathers forth To watch thy sacred sign!

And when its yellow lustre smiled
O'er mountains yet untrod,
Each mother held aloft her child
To bless the bow of God.

Methinks thy jubilee to keep,
The first-made anthem rang
On earth delivered from the deep,
And the first poet sang.

Nor ever shall the Muse's eye
Unraptured greet thy beam:
Theme of primeval prophecy,

Be still the prophet's theme!

The Earth to thee her incense yields,
The lark thy welcome sings,
When glittering in the freshened fields
The snowy mushroom springs.

How glorious is thy girdle, cast
O'er mountain, tower, and town,
Or mirrored in the ocean vast
A thousand fathoms down!

As fresh in yon horizon dark,
As young thy beauties seem
As when the eagle from the ark
First sported in thy beam :

For, faithful to its sacred page,
Heaven still rebuilds thy span,

Nor lets the type grow pale with age
That first spoke peace to man.

THE LAST MAN.

ALL worldly shapes shall melt in gloom,
The Sun himself must die,
Before this mortal shall assume

Its immortality!

I saw a vision in my sleep,

That gave my spirit strength to sweep
Adown the gulf of Time!

I saw the last of human mould
That shall Creation's death behold,
As Adam saw her prime!

The Sun's eye had a sickly glare,
The Earth with age was wan,
The skeletons of nations were

Around that lonely man!

Some had expired in fight,-the brands Still rusted in their bony hands;

In plague and famine some! Earth's cities had no sound nor tread; And ships were drifting with the dead To shores where all was dumb!

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