But list! - though winter storms be nigh, Woe! woe to Tyrants! from the lyre

A PEN-to register; a key—

That winds through secret wards;

Are well assign'd to Memory
By allegoric Bards.

As aptly, also, might be given

A Pencil to her hand;

That, softening objects, sometimes even
Outstrips the heart's demand;

LIVES there a man whose sole delights
Are trivial pomp and city noise,

Hardening a heart that loathes or slights
What every natural heart enjoys?
Who never caught a noon-tide dream

That smoothes foregone distress, the lines From murmur of a running stream?

Of lingering care subdues,
Long-vanish'd happiness refines,
And clothes in brighter hues;

Yet, like a tool of Fancy, works
Those Spectres to dilate

That startle Conscience, as she lurks
Within her lonely seat.

O, that our lives, which flee so fast,
In purity were such,

That not an image of the past
Should fear that pencil's touch!

Retirement then might hourly look
Upon a soothing scene,

Age steal to his allotted nook
Contented and serene;

With heart as calm as lakes that sleep,
In frosty moonlight glistening;

Or mountain rivers, where they creep
Along a channel smooth and deep,
To their own far-off murmurings listen-
ing.
[1823.

THIS lawn, a carpet all alive

Could strip, for aught the prospect yields
To him, their verdure from the fields?
And take the radiance from the clouds
In which the Sun his setting shrouds?

A soul so pitiably forlorn,

If such do on this Earth abide,
May season apathy with scorn,
May turn indifference to pride;
And still be not unblest,-compared
With him who grovels, self-debarr'd
From all that lies within the scope
Of holy faith and Christian hope;

5 Hundreds of times have I watched the dancing of shadows amid a press of sunshine, and other beautiful appearances of light and shade, flowers and shrubs. Some are of opinion that the habit of analysing, decomposing, and anatomising is unfavourable to the perception of beau ty. People are led into this mistake by overlooking the fact that, such processes being to a certain extent within the reach of a limited intellect, we are apt to ascribe to them that insensibility of which they are in truth the effect, and not the cause. Admiration and love, to which all knowledge truly vital must tend, are felt by men of real genius in proportion as their discoveries in natural Philosophy are enlarged; and the beauty in form of a plant or an animal is not made less but

With shadows flung from leaves, to strive more apparent as a whole, by more accu

In dance amid a press

Of sunshine, an apt emblem yields
Of Worldlings revelling in the fields
Of strenuous idleness:

rate insight into its constituent properties and powers. A savant, who is not also a poet in soul and a religionist in heart, is a feeble and unhappy creature. -Author's Notes.

Sighing I turn'd away; but ere

Night fell I heard, or seem'd to hear,
Music that sorrow comes not near,
A ritual hymn,

Chanted in love that casts out fear
By Seraphim.1

THOUGHTS

SUGGESTED THE DAY FOLLOWING, ON
THE BANKS OF NITH, NEAR THE
POET'S RESIDENCE.

Too frail to keep the lofty vow
That must have follow'd when his brow
Was wreathed (The Vision tells us how)
With holly spray,

He falter'd, drifted to and fro,

And pass'd away.

Well might such thoughts, dear Sister,
throng

Our minds when, lingering all too long,
Over the grave of Burns we hung
In social grief, —

Indulged as if it were a wrong

To seek relief.

But, leaving each unquiet theme
Where gentlest judgments may misdeem,
And prompt to welcome every gleam

Of good and fair,

Let us beside this limpid Stream

Breathe hopeful air.

Enough of sorrow, wreck, and blight;
Think rather of those moments bright
When to the consciousness of right

His course was true,
When Wisdom prosper'd in his sight
And virtue grew.

Yes, freely let our hearts expand,
Freely as in youth's season bland,
When side by side, his Book in hand,

We wont to stray,

Our pleasure varying at command
Of each sweet Lay.

How oft inspired must he have trod
These pathways, yon far-stretching road!
There lurks his home; in that Abode,
With mirth elate,

Or in his nobly-pensive mood.
The Rustic sate.

Proud thoughts that Image overawes;
Before it humbly let us pause,
And ask of Nature, from what cause
And by what rules

She train'd her Burns to win applause
That shames the Schools.

Through busiest street and loneliest glen
Are felt the flashes of his pen;

He rules 'mid winter snows, and when
Bees fill their hives;

Deep in the general heart of men
His power survives.

What need of fields in some far clime
Where Heroes, Sages, Bards sublime,
And all that fetch'd the flowing rhyme
From genuine springs,

Shall dwell together till old Time

Folds up his wings?

Sweet Mercy! to the gates of Heaven
This Minstrel lead, his sins forgiven;
The rueful conflict, the heart riven
With vain endeavour,

And memory of Earth's bitter leaven,
Effaced for ever.

But why to Him confine the prayer,
When kindred thoughts and yearnings
On the frail heart the purest share [bear
With all that live? -

The best of what we do and are,
Just God, forgive!

TO THE SONS OF BURNS, AFTER VISITING THE GRAVE OF THEIR FATHER.

1 This piece, as also several of those that follow, grew out of the tour that the poet and his sister made through Scotland. in 1803. In a note on the piece, the author has the following: "We talked of Burns, 'MID crowded obelisks and urns and of the prospect he must have had, perhaps from his own door, of Skiddaw I sought th' untimely grave of Burns: and his companions; indulging ourselves Sons of the Bard, my heart still mourns in the fancy that we might have been perWith sorrow true; sonally known to each other, and he have looked upon those objects with more pleasure for our sakes."

And more would grieve, but that it turns
Trembling to you.