Pleasure, or Grief, and Toil that seldom looks Into the secret of to-morrow's fare;
Though poor, yet rich, without the wealth of books,
Or aught that watchful Love to Nature owes For her mute Powers, fixed Forms, or transient Shows.
ON THE FRITH OF CLYDE.
In a Steam-boat.
ARRAN! a single-crested Teneriffe, A St. Helena next-in shape and hue, Varying her crowded peaks and ridges blue; Who but must covet a cloud-seat, or skiff Built for the air, or wingèd Hippogriff? That he might fly, where no one could pursue, From this dull Monster and her sooty crew; And, as a God, light on thy topmost cliff. Impotent wish! which reason would despise If the mind knew no union of extremes, No natural bond between the boldest schemes Ambition frames and heart-humilities.
Beneath stern mountains many a soft vale lies, And lofty springs give birth to lowly streams.
ON REVISITING DUNOLLY CASTLE.
See former series, vol. iii., p. 311.
THE captive Bird was gone ;-to cliff or moor Perchance had flown, delivered by the storm; Or he had pined, and sunk to feed the worm: Him found we not: but, climbing a tall tower, There saw, impaved with rude fidelity Of art mosaic, in a roofless floor,
An Eagle with stretched wings, but beamless eye
An Eagle that could neither wail nor soar. Effigy of the Vanished-(shall I dare To call thee so?) or symbol of fierce deeds And of the towering courage which past times Rejoiced in-take, whate'er thou be, a share, Not undeserved, of the memorial rhymes That animate my way where'er it leads!
NOT to the clouds, not to the cliff, he flew; But when a storm, on sea or mountain bred, Came and delivered him, alone he sped Into the castle-dungeon's darkest mew. Now near his master's house in open view He dwells, and hears indignant tempests howl, Kennelled and chained. Ye tame domestic fowl,
Beware of him! Thou, saucy cockatoo,
Look to thy plumage and thy life!—The roe, Fleet as the west wind, is for him no quarry; 10 Balanced in ether he will never tarry,
Eyeing the sea's blue depths. Poor Bird! even
Doth man of brother man a creature make That clings to slavery for its own sad sake.
WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF MACPHERSON'S OSSIAN.
OFT have I caught, upon a fitful breeze, Fragments of far-off melodies,
With ear not coveting the whole, A part so charmed the pensive soul: While a dark storm before my sight Was yielding, on a mountain height Loose vapours have I watched, that won Prismatic colours from the sun;
Nor felt a wish that heaven would show The image of its perfect bow.
What need, then, of these finished Strains? Away with counterfeit Remains!
An abbey in its lone recess,
A temple of the wilderness,
Wrecks though they be, announce with feeling The majesty of honest dealing.
Spirit of Ossian! if imbound
In language thou may'st yet be found, If aught (intrusted to the pen Or floating on the tongues of men, Albeit shattered and impaired) Subsist thy dignity to guard,
In concert with memorial claim
Of old grey stone, and high-born name That cleaves to rock or pillared cave
Where moans the blast, or beats the wave, Let Truth, stern arbitress of all,
And for presumptuous wrongs atone;- Authentic words be given, or none!
Time is not blind;-yet He, who spares Pyramid pointing to the stars,
Hath preyed with ruthless appetite On all that marked the primal flight
Of the poetic ecstasy
Into the land of mystery.
No tongue is able to rehearse
One measure, Orpheus! of thy verse;
Musæus, stationed with his lyre Supreme among the Elysian quire, Is, for the dwellers upon earth, Mute as a lark ere morning's birth. Why grieve for these, though past away The music, and extinct the lay? When thousands, by severer doom, Full early to the silent tomb
Have sunk, at Nature's call; or strayed From hope and promise, self-betrayed; The garland withering on their brows; Stung with remorse for broken vows; Frantic else how might they rejoice? And friendless, by their own sad choice!
Hail, Bards of mightier grasp! on you I chiefly call, the chosen Few,
Who cast not off the acknowledged guide, 55 Who faltered not, nor turned aside; Whose lofty genius could survive Privation, under sorrow thrive; In whom the fiery Muse revered The symbol of a snow-white beard, Bedewed with meditative tears
Dropped from the lenient cloud of years.
Brothers in soul! though distant times Produced you nursed in various climes, Ye, when the orb of life had waned, A plenitude of love retained: Hence, while in you each sad regret By corresponding hope was met, Ye lingered among human kind, Sweet voices for the passing wind; Departing sunbeams, loth to stop, Though smiling on the last hill top! Such to the tender-hearted maid
Even ere her joys begin to fade; Such, haply, to the rugged chief By fortune crushed, or tamed by grief; Appears, on Morven's lonely shore, Dim-gleaming through imperfect lore, The Son of Fingal; such was blind Mæonides of ampler mind;
Such Milton, to the fountain head Of glory by Urania led!
WE saw, but surely, in the motley crowd, Not One of us has felt the far-famed sight; How could we feel it? each the other's blight, Hurried and hurrying, volatile and loud. O for those motions only that invite The Ghost of Fingal to his tuneful Cave By the breeze entered, and wave after wave Softly embosoming the timid light! And by one Votary who at will might stand Gazing and take into his mind and heart, With undistracted reverence, the effect Of those proportions where the almighty hand That made the worlds, the sovereign Architect, Has deigned to work as if with human Art!
CAVE OF STAFFA.
After the Crowd had departed.
THANKS for the lessons of this Spot-fit school For the presumptuous thoughts that would assign
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