Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

"Tis the chief of Glenara laments for his dear; And her sire, and the people, are call'd to her bier.

Glenara came first with the mourners and shroud; Her kinsmen they followed, but mourned not aloud;

Their plaids all their bosoms were folded around: They marched all in silence-they look'd on the ground.

In silence they reach'd over mountain and moor, To a heath where the oak-tree grew lonely and hoar;

"Now here let us place the gray stone of her cairn:

"Sad is my fate!" said the heart-broken stranger,

The wild deer and wolf to a covert can flee;
But I have no refuge from famine and danger,
A home and a country remain not to me.
Never again in the green sunny bowers,
Where my forefathers liv'd, shall I spend the
sweet hours;

Or cover my harp with the wild-woven flowers,
And strike to the numbers of Erin-go-bragh.

"Erin, my country! though sad and forsaken,
In dreams I revisit thy sea-beaten shore;
But, alas! in a far foreign land I awaken,
And sigh for the friends who can meet me no
more!

Why speak ye no word?" said Glenara the stern. Oh, cruel fate! wilt thou never replace me

[blocks in formation]

The scarlet hip and blackberry
So prank'd September's thorn.

In Cora's glen the calm how deep!
That trees on loftiest hill
Like statues stood, or things asleep,
All motionless and still.

The torrent spoke, as if his noise
Bade earth be quiet round,
And give his loud and lonely voice
A more commanding sound.

His foam, beneath the yellow light
Of noon, came down like one
Continuous sheet of jaspers bright-
Broad rolling by the sun.

Dear Linn! let loftier falling floods

Have prouder names than thine; And king of all, enthroned in woods, Let Niagara shine.

Barbarian, let him shake his coasts

With reeking thunders far
Extended like th' array of hosts
In broad, embattled war!

His voice appals the wilderness:
Approaching thine, we feel
A solemn, deep melodiousness,
That needs no louder peal.

More fury would but disenchant
Thy dream-inspiring din;

Be thou the Scottish Muse's haunt,
Romantic Cora Linn.

LINES WRITTEN ON VISITING A SCENE IN ARGYLESHIRE.

At the silence of twilight's contemplative hour I have mused in a sorrowful mood,

On the wind-shaken weeds that embosomed the bower

Where the home of my forefathers stood. All ruin'd and wild is their roofless abode,

And lonely the dark raven's sheltering tree: And travell'd by few is the grass-cover'd road, Where the hunter of deer and the warrior trod, To his hills that encircle the sea.

Yet wandering, I found on my ruinous walk,
By the dial-stone aged and green,
One rose of the wilderness left on its stalk,
To mark where a garden had been:
Like a brotherless hermit, the last of its race,
All wild in the silence of nature, it drew

From each wandering sunbeam a lonely embrace, For the night-weed and thorn overshadow'd the place

Where the flower of my forefathers grew.

Sweet bud of the wilderness! emblem of all
That remains in this desolate heart!
The fabric of bliss to its centre may fall,

But patience shall never depart! Though the wilds of enchantment, all vernal and bright,

In the days of delusion by fancy combined With the vanishing phantoms of love and delight, Abandon my soul like a dream of the night, And leave but a desert behind.

Be hush'd, my dark spirit! for wisdom condemns
When the faint and the feeble deplore;

Be strong as the rock of the ocean that stems
A thousand wild waves on the shore!
Through the perils of chance, and the scowl of
disdain,

May thy front be unalter'd, thy courage elate! Yea, even the name I have worshipp'd in vain Shall awake not the sigh of remembrauco again: To bear is to conquer our fate.

ODE TO THE MEMORY OF BURNS.

Soul of the Poet! wheresoe'er
Reclaimed from earth, thy genius plume
Her wings of immortality:
Suspend thy harp in happier sphere,
And with thine influence illume
The gladness of our jubilec.

And fly like fiends from secret spell,
Discord and strife, at Burns's name,
Exorcised by his memory;

For he was chief of bards that swell
The heart with songs of social flame,
And high delicious revelry.

And love's own strain to him was given,
To warble all its ecstacies

With Pythian words unsought, unwill'd,-
Love, the surviving gift of Heaven,
The choicest sweet of Paradise,
In life's else bitter cup distill'd.

Who that has melted o'er his lay
To Mary's soul, in Heaven above,
But pictured sees, in fancy strong,
The landscape and the livelong day
That smiled upon their mutual love?
Who that has felt forgets the song?

Nor skill'd 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 show'd 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, tann'd
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.

Encamp'd by Indian rivers wild,
The soldier resting on his arms
In Burns' carol sweet recals

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 cross'd 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 mourn'd-the brave, the good,
Edward that died at Waterloo!1

1 Major Edward Hodge, of the 7th Hussars, who fell

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 crush'd 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.

LINES ON REVISITING CATHCART.

Oh! scenes of my childhood, and dear to my heart,

Ye green waving woods on the margin of Cart, How blest in the morning of life I have stray'd By the stream of the vale and the grass-cover'd glade.

Then, then every rapture was young and sincere, Ere the sunshine of bliss was bedimm'd by a tear, And a sweeter delight every scene seem'd to lend, That the mansion of peace was the home of a friend.

Now the scenes of my childhood, and dear to my heart,

All pensive I visit, and sigh to depart;

Their flowers seem to languish, their beauty to

cease,

For a stranger inhabits the mansion of peace.

But hush'd be the sigh that untimely complains, While friendship and all its enchantment remains, While it blooms like the flower of a winterless clime,

Untainted by chance, unabated by time.

THE SOLDIER'S DREAM.

Our bugles sang truce-for the night-cloud had lower'd,

And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky; And thousands had sunk on the ground overpower'd,

The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.

When reposing that night on my pallet of straw, By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain, At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw;

And twice ere the morning I dreamt it again.

at the head of his squadron, in the attack of the Polish Lancers.

[blocks in formation]

THOMAS BROWN.

BORN 1778- DIED 1820.

THOMAS BROWN, one of the most eminent | burgh Review, established in 1802—the leadof modern metaphysicians, was the youngest ing article in the second number on "Kant's son of Samuel Brown, minister of Kirkmabreck, Philosophy" being from his pen. An essay on in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright, and was Hume's Theory of Causation established his born in the manse of that parish, January 9, growing reputation, and soon after, when Pro1778. Having lost his father when very fessor Stewart's declining health obliged him young, he was placed by a maternal uncle at to be occasionally absent from his chair, Brown various academies in England; and in his was appointed his substitute. In this new fourteenth year he entered the University of sphere he met with gratifying success, and after Edinburgh, attending, among other courses of two years was appointed joint-professor with lectures, those of Professor Dugald Stewart. his former teacher. The young student made rapid progress in his In 1814 appeared the Paradise of Coquettes, studies, and soon gained the friendship of his his largest poetical work. A reviewer of celebrated preceptor. In the year 1797 Brown note declared it to be "by far the best and became a member of the "Academy of Phy- most brilliant imitation of Pope that has apsics," a philosophical association established peared since the time of that great writer; by a few young men of talent, some of whom with all his point, polish, and nicely balanced were afterwards the originators of the Edin-versification, as well as his sarcasm and witty burgh Review. As a member of this society he formed the acquaintance of Brougham, Jeffrey, Leyden, Sydney Smith, and others subsequently greatly distinguished in the walks of literature.

[merged small][ocr errors]

malice." In 1816 he published another poem, entitled the "Wanderer in Norway," followed soon after by "Agnes," and "Emily," two separate volumes of poems, all of which met with considerable favour and success. Professor Brown died at Brompton, London, April 2, 1820, and his remains were removed to the churchyard of his native parish. After his decease his Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind were published in four 8vo volumes, and have deservedly obtained a high reputation.

Miss Margaret Brown, sister of the philosopher, a lady of gentle Christian character, was the author of a number of very respectable poems, which were collected and published at Edinburgh in 1819, in a small 12mo volume.

THE FAITHLESS MOURNER.

When thy smile was still clouded in gloom,
When the tear was still dim in thine eye,

I thought of the virtues, scarce cold in the tomb,
And I spoke not of love to thy sigh!

I spoke not of love; yet the breast,

Which mark'd thy long anguish deplore

The sire, whom in sickness, in age, thou hadst bless'd,

Though silent, was loving thee more.

How soon wert thou pledged to my arms,
Thou hadst vow'd, but I urged not the

day;

« VorigeDoorgaan »