IONA. ON to Iona!-What can she afford To us save matter for a thoughtful sigh, In urgent contrast? To diffuse the WORD (Thy Paramount, mighty Nature! and Time's Lord) While heaven's vast sea of voices chants their praise. To each voyager Some ragged child holds up for sale a store Of wave-worn pebbles, pleading on the shore Where once came monk and nun with gentle stir, Blessings to give, news ask, or suit prefer. Strewn far and wide. Think, proud Philosopher! Still on her sons, the beams of mercy shine; And hopes, perhaps more heavenly bright than thine, A faith more fixed, a rapture more divine, XXXIV. THE BLACK STONES OF IONA. [See Martin's Voyage among the Western Isles.] HERE on their knees men swore: the stones were black, Black in the people's minds and words, yet they Of conscience souls are placed by deeds that lack HOMEWARD We turn. Isle of Columba's Cell, Remote St. Kilda, lone and loved sea-mark That thickens, spreads, and, mingling fold with fold, XXXVI. GREENOCK. Per me si va nella Città dolente. We have not passed into a doleful City, VOL. IV. N Alas! too busy Rival of old Tyre, Whose merchants Princes were, whose decks were thrones; Soon may the punctual sea in vain respire To serve thy need, in union with that Clyde XXXVII. [MOSGIEL was thus pointed out to me by a young man on the top of the coach on my way from Glasgow to Kilmarnock. It is remarkable that, though Burns lived some time here, and during much the most productive period of his poetical life, he nowhere adverts to the splendid prospects stretching towards the sea and bounded by the peaks of Arran on one part, which in clear weather he must have had daily before his eyes. In one of his poetical effusions he speaks of describing fair Nature's face" as a privilege on which he sets a high value; nevertheless, natural appearances rarely take a lead in his poetry. It is as a human being, eminently sensitive and intelligent, and not as a poet, clad in his priestly robes and carrying the ensigns of sacerdotal office, that he interests and affects us. Whether he speaks of rivers, hills and woods, it is not so much on account of the properties with which they are absolutely endowed, as relatively to local patriotic remembrances and associations, or as they ministered to personal feelings, especially those of love, whether happy or otherwise; -yet it is not always so. Soon after we had passed Mosgiel Farm we crossed the Ayr, murmuring and winding through a narrow woody hollow. His line-"Auld hermit Ayr strays through his woods' '-came at once to my mind with Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, and Doon,-Ayrshire streams over which he breathes a sigh as being unnamed in song; and surely his own attempts to make them known were as successful as his heart could desire.] *THERE!" said a Stripling, pointing with meet pride Towards a low roof with green trees half concealed, "Is Mosgiel Farm; and that's the very field Where Burns ploughed up the Daisy." Far and wide Of earth, sky, sea, and air, was vivified. ، Beneath the random bield of clod or stone XXXVIII. THE RIVER EDEN, CUMBERLAND. ["NATURE gives thee flowers That have no rivals among British bowers." This can scarcely be true to the letter; but, without stretching the point at all, I can say that the soil and air appear more congenial with many upon the banks of this river than I have observed in any other parts of Great Britain.] EDEN! till now thy beauty had I viewed |