| |
| HOME, 1 thou return’st from Thames, whose Naiads long | |
| Have seen thee lingering with a fond delay, | |
| ’Mid those soft friends, whose hearts, some future day, | |
| Shall melt, perhaps, to hear thy tragic song. | |
| Go, not unmindful of that cordial youth | 5 |
| Whom, long endear’d, thou leav’st by Levant’s side; | |
| Together let us wish him lasting truth, | |
| And joy untainted with his destined bride. | |
| Go! nor regardless, while these numbers boast | |
| My short-lived bliss, forget my social name; | 10 |
| But think, far off, how, on the southern coast, | |
| I met thy friendship with an equal flame! | |
| Fresh to that soil thou turn’st, where every vale | |
| Shall prompt the poet, and his song demand: | |
| To thee thy copious subjects ne’er shall fail; | 15 |
| Thou need’st but take thy pencil to thy hand, | |
| And paint what all believe, who own thy genial land. | |
| |
| There must thou wake perforce thy Doric quill; | |
| ’Tis Fancy’s land to which thou sett’st thy feet; | |
| Where still, ’tis said, the fairy people meet, | 20 |
| Beneath each birken shade, on mead or hill. | |
| There, each trim lass, that skims the milky store, | |
| To the swart tribes their creamy bowls allots; | |
| By night they sip it round the cottage door, | |
| While airy minstrels warble jocund notes. | 25 |
| There, every herd, by sad experience, knows | |
| How, wing’d with fate, their elf-shot arrows fly, | |
| When the sick ewe her summer food foregoes, | |
| Or, stretch’d on earth, the heart-smit heifers lie. | |
| Such airy beings awe the untutor’d swains; | 30 |
| Nor thou, though learn’d, his homelier thoughts neglect; | |
| Let thy sweet muse the rural faith sustain; | |
| These are the themes of simple, sure effect, | |
| That add new conquests to her boundless reign | |
| And fill, with double force, her heart-commanding strain. | 35 |
| |
| E’en yet preserved, how often mayst thou hear, | |
| Where to the pole the Boreal mountains run, | |
| Taught by the father, to his listening son, | |
| Strange lays, whose power had charm’d a Spenser’s ear. | |
| At every pause, before thy mind possest, | 40 |
| Old Runic bards shall seem to rise around, | |
| With uncouth lyres, in many-colour’d vest, | |
| Their matted hair with boughs fantastic crown’d: | |
| Whether thou bid’st the well-taught hind repeat | |
| The choral dirge, that mourns some chieftain brave, | 45 |
| When every shrieking maid her bosom beat, | |
| And strew’d with choicest herbs his scented grave! | |
| Or whether, sitting in the shepherd’s shiel, | |
| Thou hear’st some sounding tale of war’s alarms; | |
| When at the bugle’s call, with fire and steel, | 50 |
| The sturdy clans pour’d forth their brawny swarms, | |
| And hostile brothers met, to prove each other’s arms. | |
| |
| ’Tis thine to sing, how, framing hideous spells, | |
| In Sky’s lone isle, the gifted wizard seer, | |
| Lodged in the wintry cave with Fate’s fell spear, | 55 |
| Or in the depth of Uist’s dark forest dwells: | |
| How they, whose sight such dreary dreams engross, | |
| With their own visions oft astonish’d droop, | |
| When, o’er the watery strath, or quaggy moss, | |
| They see the gliding ghosts unbodied troop. | 60 |
| Or, if in sports, or on the festive green, | |
| Their destined glance some fated youth descry, | |
| Who now, perhaps, in lusty vigour seen, | |
| And rosy health, shall soon lamented die. | |
| For them the viewless forms of air obey; | 65 |
| Their bidding heed, and at their beck repair: | |
| They know what spirit brews the stormful day, | |
| And, heartless, oft like moody madness, stare | |
| To see the phantom train their secret work prepare. | |
| |
| (To monarchs dear, some hundred miles astray, | 70 |
| Oft have they seen Fate give the fatal blow! | |
| The seer, in Sky, shriek’d as the blood did flow, | |
| When headless Charles warm on the scaffold lay! | |
| As Boreas threw his young Aurora forth, 2 | |
| In the first year of the first George’s reign, | 75 |
| And battles raged in welkin of the North, | |
| They mourn’d in air, fell, fell Rebellion slain! | |
| And, as, of late, they joy’d in Preston’s fight, | |
| Saw, at sad Falkirk, all their hopes near crown’d! | |
| They raved! divining, through their second sight, 3 | 80 |
| Pale, red Culloden, where these hopes were drown’d! | |
| Illustrious William! 4 Britain’s guardian name! | |
| One William saved us from a tyrant’s stroke; | |
| He, for a sceptre, gain’d heroic fame, | |
| But thou, more glorious, Slavery’s chain hast broke, | 85 |
| To reign a private man, and bow to Freedom’s yoke! | |
| |
| These, too, thou’lt sing! for well thy magic muse | |
| Can to the topmost heaven of grandeur soar; | |
| Or stoop to wail the swain that is no more! | |
| Ah, homely swains! your homeward steps ne’er lose; | 90 |
| Let not dank Will 5 mislead you to the heath; | |
| Dancing in mirky night, o’er fen and lake, | |
| He glows to draw you downward to your death, | |
| In his bewitch’d, low, marshy, willow brake!) | |
| What though far off, from some dark dell espied, | 95 |
| His glimmering mazes cheer the excursive sight, | |
| Yet turn, ye wanderers, turn your steps aside, | |
| Nor trust the guidance of that faithless light; | |
| For watchful, lurking, ’mid the unrustling reed, | |
| At those mirk hours the wily monster lies, | 100 |
| And listens oft to hear the passing steed, | |
| And frequent round him rolls his sullen eyes, | |
| If chance his savage wrath may some weak wretch surprise. | |
| |
| Ah, luckless swain, o’er all unblest indeed! | |
| Whom late bewilder’d in the dank, dark fen, | 105 |
| Far from his flocks, and smoking hamlet, then! | |
| To that sad spot where hums the sedgy weed: | |
| On him, enraged, the fiend in angry mood, | |
| Shall never look with pity’s kind concern, | |
| But instant, furious, raise the whelming flood | 110 |
| O’er its drown’d banks, forbidding all return! | |
| Or, if he meditate his wish’d escape, | |
| To some dim hill, that seems uprising near, | |
| To his faint eye the grim and grisly shape, | |
| In all its terrors clad, shall wild appear. | 115 |
| Meantime the watery surge shall round him rise, | |
| Pour’d sudden forth from every swelling source! | |
| What now remains but tears and hopeless sighs? | |
| His fear-shook limbs have lost their youthly force, | |
| And down the waves he floats, a pale and breathless corse! | 120 |
| |
| For him in vain his anxious wife shall wait, | |
| Or wander forth to meet him on his way; | |
| For him in vain at to-fall of the day, | |
| His babes shall linger at the unclosing gate! | |
| Ah, ne’er shall he return! Alone, if night | 125 |
| Her travel’d limbs in broken slumber steep, | |
| With drooping willows drest, his mournful sprite | |
| Shall visit sad, perchance, her silent sleep: | |
| Then he, perhaps, with moist and watery hand, | |
| Shall fondly seem to press her shuddering cheek, | 130 |
| And with his blue swoln face before her stand, | |
| And, shivering cold, these piteous accents speak; | |
| ‘Pursue, dear wife, thy daily toils pursue, | |
| At dawn or dusk, industrious as before; | |
| Nor e’er of me one helpless thought renew, | 135 |
| While I lie weltering on the osier’d shore, | |
| Drown’d by the Kelpie’s 6 wrath, nor e’er shall aid thee more!’ | |
| |
| Unbounded is thy range; with varied skill | |
| Thy muse may, like those feathery tribes which spring | |
| From their rude rocks, extend her skirting wing | 140 |
| Round the moist marge of each cold Hebrid isle, | |
| To that hoar pile 7 which still its ruins shows: | |
| In those small vaults a pigmy folk is found, | |
| Whose bones the delver with his spade upthrows, | |
| And culls them, wondering, from the hallow’d ground! | 145 |
| Or thither, 8 where, beneath the showery west, | |
| The mighty kings of three fair realms are laid; | |
| Once foes, perhaps, together now they rest, | |
| No slaves revere them, and no wars invade: | |
| Yet frequent now, at midnight’s solemn hour, | 150 |
| The rifted mounds their yawning cells unfold, | |
| And forth the monarchs stalk with sovereign power, | |
| In pageant robes, and wreath’d with sheeny gold, | |
| And on their twilight tombs aerial council hold. | |
| |
| But O, o’er all, forget not Kilda’s race, | 155 |
| On whose bleak rocks, which brave the wasting tides, | |
| Fair Nature’s daughter, Virtue, yet abides. | |
| Go! just as they, their blameless manners trace! | |
| Then to my ear transmit some gentle song, | |
| Of those whose lives are yet sincere and plain, | 160 |
| Their bounded walks the rugged cliffs along, | |
| And all their prospect but the wintry main. | |
| With sparing temperance, at the needful time, | |
| They drain the scented spring; or, hunger-prest, | |
| Along the Atlantic rock, undreading climb, | 165 |
| And of its eggs despoil the solan’s nest. | |
| Thus, blest in primal innocence, they live | |
| Sufficed, and happy with that frugal fare | |
| Which tasteful toil and hourly danger give. | |
| Hard is their shallow soil, and bleak and bare; | 170 |
| Nor ever vernal bee was heard to murmur there! | |
| |
| Nor need’st thou blush that such false themes engage | |
| Thy gentle mind, of fairer stores possest; | |
| For not alone they touch the village breast, | |
| But fill’d, in elder time, the historic page. | 175 |
| There, Shakespeare’s self, with every garland crown’d, | |
| Flew to those fairy climes his fancy sheen, | |
| In musing hour, his wayward Sisters found, | |
| And with their terrors drest the magic scene. | |
| From them he sung, when, ’mid his bold design, | 180 |
| Before the Scot, afflicted, and aghast! | |
| The shadowy kings of Banquo’s fated line | |
| Through the dark cave in gleamy pageant pass’d. | |
| Proceed! nor quit the tales which, simply told, | |
| Could once so well my answering bosom pierce; | 185 |
| 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, | 190 |
| And call forth fresh delight to Fancy’s view, | |
| The heroic muse employ’d her Tasso’s art! | |
| How have I trembled, when, at Tancred’s stroke, | |
| Its gushing blood the gaping cypress pour’d! | |
| When each live plant with mortal accents spoke, | 195 |
| And the wild blast upheaved the vanish’d 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! | 200 |
| Hence, at each sound, imagination glows! | |
| Hence, at each picture, vivid life starts here! | |
| Hence his warm lay with softest sweetness flows! | |
| Melting it flows, pure, murmuring, strong, and clear, | |
| And fills the impassion’d heart, and wins the harmonious ear! | 205 |
| |
| 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 | 210 |
| 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; | 215 |
| Or crop, from Tiviot’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 Home dwells, on hill, or lowly moor, | 220 |
| To him I lose, your kind protection lend, | |
| And, touch’d with love like mine, preserve my absent friend! | |
