Why, goddess, why to us denied,
Lay'st thou thy ancient lyre aside?
As, in that loved Athenian bower,
You learned an all-commanding power,
Thy mimic soul, O Nymph, endeared,
Can well recall what then it heard,
Where is thy native, simple heart,
Devote to Virtue, Fancy, Art?
Arise, as in that elder time,
Warm, energic, chaste, sublime!
Thy wonders, in that godlike age,
Fill thy recording sister's1 page-
'Tis said, and I believe the tale,
Thy humblest reed could more prevail,
Had more of strength, diviner rage,
Than all which charms this laggard age;
E'en all at once together found,
Cecilia's mingled world of sound
O bid our vain endeavours cease;
Revive the just designs of Greece:
Return in all thy simple state!
Confirm the tales her sons relate!
ON THE DEATH OF THE POET THOMSON.
In yonder grave a Druid lies,
Where slowly winds the stealing wave;
The year's best sweets shall duteous rise
To deck its Poet's sylvan grave!
In yon deep bed of whispering reeds
His airy harp shall now be laid;
That he, whose heart in sorrow bleeds,
May love through life the soothing shade.
Then maids and youths shall linger here;
And while its sounds at distance swell,
Shall sadly seem in Pity's ear
To hear the woodland pilgrim's knell.
1 History. tion of which, see the "Castle of In2 The Harp of Æolus, for a descrip- dolence."
Remembrance oft shall haunt the shore,
When Thames in summer wreaths is dressed; And oft suspend the dashing oar,
To bid his gentle spirit rest!
And, oft as Ease and Health retire
To breezy lawn, or forest deep,
The friend shall view yon whitening spire1.
And 'mid the varied landscape weep.
But thou who own'st that earthy bed,
Ah! what will every dirge avail?
Or tears which Love and Pity shed,
That mourn beneath the gliding sail!
Yet lives there one, whose heedless eye
Shall scorn thy pale shrine glimmering near?
With him, sweet bard! may Fancy die;
And Joy desert the blooming year.
But thou, lorn stream, whose sullen tide
No sedge-crowned Sisters now attend,
Now waft me from the green hill's side,
Whose cold turf hides the buried friend.
And see the fairy valleys fade:
Dun Night has veiled the solemn view!
Yet once again, dear parted shade,
Meek Nature's child, again adieu!
The genial meads, assigned to bless
Thy life, shall mourn thy early doom.
There hinds and shepherd-girls shall dress,
With simple hands, thy rural tomb.
Long, long thy stone and pointed clay
Shall melt the musing Briton's eyes:
O vales and wild woods! shall he say,
In yonder grave a Druid lies!
1 Richmond Church, where Thomson was buried.
ON THE POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS OF THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND.
Home! thou return'st from Thames, whose Naiads 2 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,
Whom, long endeared, thou leav'st by Lavant'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;
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;
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,
Beneath each birken shade, on mead or hill.
There, each trim lass that skims the milky store,
To the swart tribes3 their creamy bowls allots;
By night they sip it round the cottage door,
While airy minstrels warble jocund notes.
There, every herd, by sad experience, knows
How, winged with fate, their elf-shot arrows fly,
When the sick ewe her summer food foregoes,
Or, stretched on earth, the heart-smit heifers lie.
Such airy beings awe the untutored swain:
Nor thou, though learned, his homelier thoughts neglect; Let thy sweet Muse the rural faith sustain; These are the themes of simple, sure effect,
1 The author of "Douglas," a tragedy.
That add new conquests to her boundless reign
And fill, with double force, her heart-commanding strain.
E'en yet preserved, how often may'st thou hear,
Where to the pole the Boreal1 mountains run,
Taught by the father to his listening son,
Strange lays, whose power had charmed a Spenser's ear.
At every pause, before thy mind possessed,
Old Runic 2 bards shall seem to rise around, With uncouth lyres, in many-coloured vest,
Their matted hair with boughs fantastic crowned: Whether thou bidd'st the well-taught hind repeat
The choral dirge, that mourns some chieftain brave, When every shrieking maid her bosom beat,
And strewed with choicest herbs his scented grave; Or whether, sitting in the shepherd's shiel3,
Thou hear'st some sounding tale of war's alarms; When at the bugle's call, with fire and steel,
The sturdy clans poured 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,
Or in the depth of Uist's dark forest dwells:
How they, whose sight such dreary dreams engross,
With their own visions oft astonished droop,
When, o'er the watery strath5, or quaggy moss,
They see the gliding ghosts unbodied troop:
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;
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,
Oft have they seen Fate give the fatal blow!
The seer, in Sky, shrieked as the blood did flow,
When headless Charles warm on the scaffold lay!
1 Northern.
2 Scandinavian. 3 Hut.
4 One of the outer Hebrides.
5 Valley.
As Boreas threw his young Aurora1 forth,
In the first year of the first George's reign,
And battles raged in welkin of the North,
They mourned in air, fell, fell Rebellion slain!
And as, of late, they joined in Preston's fight,
Saw, at sad Falkirk, all their hopes near crowned!
They raved! divining through their second sight,
Pale red Culloden, where these hopes were drowned!
Illustrious William! Britain's guardian name!
One William saved us from a tyrant's stroke:
He, for a sceptre, gained heroic fame,
But thou, more glorious, Slavery's chain hast broke,
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:
Let not dank Will2 mislead you to the heath;
Dancing in murky night; o'er fen and lake,
He glows, to draw you downward to your death,
In his bewitched, low, marshy, willow brake:
What though far off, from some dark dell espied,
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 murk hours the wily monster lies,
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 bewildered in the dank, dark fen, 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
O'er its drowned banks, forbidding all return!
Or, if he meditate his wished 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.
2 Will o' Wisp.
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