Proceed, nor quit the tales which, simply told, Could once so well my answering bosom pierce; Proceed! in forceful sounds and colours bold, The native legends of thy land rehearse; To such adapt thy lyre and suit thy powerful verse.
In scenes like these, which, daring to depart From sober truth, are still to nature true, And call forth fresh delight to Fancy's view, Th' heroic muse employed her Tasso's art! How have I trembled, when, at Tancred's stroke, Its gushing blood the gaping cypress poured; When each live plant with mortal accents spoke, And the wild blast upheaved the vanished sword! How have I sat, when piped the pensive wind,
To hear his harp, by British Fairfax strung,- Prevailing poet, whose undoubting mind
Believed the magic wonders which he sung! Hence at each sound imagination glows;
[The MS. lacks a line here.]
Hence his warm lay with softest sweetness flows;
Melting it flows, pure, numerous, strong, and clear, And fills th' impassioned heart, and wins th' harmonious
All hail, ye scenes that o'er my soul prevail,
Ye [splendid] friths and lakes which, far away, Are by smooth Annan fill'd, or pastoral Tay, Or Don's romantic springs; at distance, hail! The time shall come when I, perhaps, may tread Your lowly glens, o'erhung with spreading broom, Or o'er your stretching heaths by fancy led [Or o'er your mountains creep, in awful gloom:] Then will I dress once more the faded bower. Where Jonson sat in Drummond's [classic] shade, Or crop from Teviot's dale each [lyric flower]
And mourn on Yarrow's banks [where Willy's laid!]
Meantime, ye Powers that on the plains which bore The cordial youth, on Lothian's plains, attend, Where'er he dwell, on hill or lowly muir,
To him I lose your kind protection lend,
And, touched with love like mine, preserve my absent friend!
FROM THE PLEASURES OF MELANCHOLY
Beneath yon ruined abbey's moss-grown piles
Oft let me sit, at twilight hour of eve,
Where through some western window the pale moon Pours her long-levelled rule of streaming light,
While sullen, sacred silence reigns around,
Save the lone screech-owl's note, who builds his bower Amid the mouldering caverns dark and damp,
Or the calm breeze that rustles in the leaves
Of flaunting ivy, that with mantle green Invests some wasted tower. Or let me tread Its neighbouring walk of pines, where mused of old The cloistered brothers: through the gloomy void That far extends beneath their ample arch As on I pace, religious horror wraps
My soul in dread repose. But when the world Is clad in midnight's raven-coloured robe, 'Mid hollow charnel let me watch the flame Of taper dim, shedding a livid glare O'er the wan heaps, while airy voices talk Along the glimmering walls, or ghostly shape, At distance seen, invites with beckoning hand My lonesome steps through the far-winding vaults. Nor undelightful is the solemn noon
Of night, when, haply wakeful, from my couch I start: lo, all is motionless around! Roars not the rushing wind; the sons of men And every beast in mute oblivion lie;
All nature's hushed in silence and in sleep:
O then how fearful is it to reflect That through the still globe's awful solitude No being wakes but me! till stealing sleep My drooping temples bathes in opiate dews. Nor then let dreams, of wanton folly born, My senses lead through flowery paths of joy: But let the sacred genius of the night Such mystic visions send as Spenser saw When through bewildering Fancy's magic maze, To the fell house of Busyrane, he led Th' unshaken Britomart; or Milton knew, When in abstracted thought he first conceived All Heaven in tumult, and the seraphim Come towering, armed in adamant and gold.
Through Pope's soft song though all the Graces breathe, And happiest art adorn his Attic page,
Yet does my mind with sweeter transport glow, As, at the root of mossy trunk reclined,
In magic Spenser's wildly-warbled song
I see deserted Una wander wide
Through wasteful solitudes and lurid heaths, Weary, forlorn, than when the fated fair Upon the bosom bright of silver Thames Launches in all the lustre of brocade, Amid the splendours of the laughing sun: The gay description palls upon the sense, And coldly strikes the mind with feeble bliss.
The tapered choir, at the late hour of prayer, Oft let me tread, while to th' according voice The many-sounding organ peals on high The clear slow-dittied chant or varied hymn, Till all my soul is bathed in ecstasies And lapped in Paradise. Or let me sit Far in sequestered aisles of the deep dome; There lonesome listen to the sacred sounds,
Which, as they lengthen through the Gothic vaults, In hollow murmurs reach my ravished ear. Nor when the lamps, expiring, yield to night,
And solitude returns, would I forsake The solemn mansion, but attentive mark The due clock swinging slow with sweepy sway, Measuring Time's flight with momentary sound.
FROM THE GRAVE OF KING ARTHUR
[THE PASSING OF THE KING]
O'er Cornwall's cliffs the tempest roared, High the screaming sea-mew soared; On Tintagel's topmost tower Darksome fell the sleety shower; Round the rough castle shrilly sung The whirling blast, and wildly flung On each tall rampart's thundering side The surges of the tumbling tide:
When Arthur ranged his red-cross ranks On conscious Camlan's crimsoned banks: By Mordred's faithless guile decreed Beneath a Saxon spear to bleed! Yet in vain a paynim foe
Armed with fate the mighty blow; For when he fell, an Elfin Queen All in secret, and unseen, O'er the fainting hero threw Her mantle of ambrosial blue; And bade her spirits bear him far, In Merlin's agate-axled car, To her green isle's enamelled steep Far in the navel of the deep. O'er his wounds she sprinkled dew From flowers that in Arabia grew: On a rich enchanted bed
She pillowed his majestic head; O'er his brow, with whispers bland, Thrice she waved an opiate wand; And to soft music's airy sound, Her magic curtains closed around. There, renewed the vital spring, Again he reigns a mighty king;
And many a fair and fragrant clime, Blooming in immortal prime, By gales of Eden ever fanned, Owns the monarch's high command: Thence to Britain shall return (If right prophetic rolls I learn), Born on Victory's spreading plume, His ancient sceptre to resume; Once more, 'in old heroic pride, His barbèd courser to bestride; His knightly table to restore, And brave the tournaments of yore.
SONNET WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF DUGDALE'S 'MONASTICON'
Deem not devoid of elegance the sage, By Fancy's genuine feelings unbeguiled, Of painful pedantry the poring child,
Who turns, of these proud domes, th' historic page, Now sunk by Time, and Henry's fiercer rage. Think'st thou the warbling Muses never smiled On his lone hours? Ingenuous views engage His thoughts, on themes, unclassic falsely styled, Intent. While cloistered Piety displays Her mouldering roll, the piercing eye explores New manners, and the pomp of elder days, Whence culls the pensive bard his pictured stores. Nor rough nor barren are the winding ways Of hoar antiquity, but strown with flowers.
SONNET WRITTEN AT STONEHENGE
Thou noblest monument of Albion's isle! Whether by Merlin's aid from Scythia's shore, To Amber's fatal plain Pendragon bore, Huge frame of giant-hands, the mighty pile, T'entomb his Britons slain by Hengist's guile: Or Druid priests, sprinkled with human gore, Taught 'mid thy massy maze their mystic lore:
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