LINES Descriptive of feelings produced by a Visit to the place where the first nineteen years of my Life were spent, in a stormy day, after an absence of thirteen months. Thou Ocean dark and terrible in storms! Here my eyes First trembled with the lustre of the day, Here first a mother's care awoke my sense To mild enjoyment. Here my opening mind: First in the mingled harmony of voice Hence awoke to life Sublimest thoughts, a living energy That still has warm'd my beating heart, and still To various action. Here the novel sense Of beauty thrilling through my new-tuned frame, Called into being gentlest sympathies: Then through the trembling moonshine of the grove My earliest lays were wafted by the breeze. Here first my serious spirit learnt to trace Many days Are passed, scene beloved! since last my eyes To hear the sounds of praise. Have those high hopes existed. And not in vain Not in vain From Nature's bosom. I have felt the warm, The gentle influence of congenial souls Whose kindred hopes have cheered me. Who have taught My irritable spirit how to bear Injustice and oppression, nor to droop In its high flight beneath the feeble rage Of noisy tempests, whose kind hands have given When ruffled by their wild and angry breath. Beloved rocks! thou Ocean, white with mist Now I go Once more to visit my remembered home, K. SONG of the ARAUCANS Respecting storms, the people of Chili are of opinion that, the departed souls are returning from their abode beyond the sea to assist their relations and friends. Accordingly, when it thunders over the mountains, they think that the souls of their forefathers' are taken in an engagement with those of the Spaniards. The roaring of the winds they take to be the noise of horsemen attacking one another, the howling of the tempest for the beating of drums, and the claps of thunder for the discharge of muskets and cannons. When the wind drives the clouds towards the possessions of the Spaniards, they rejoice that the souls of their forefathers have repulsed those of their enemies, and call out aloud to them to give them no quarter. When the contrary happens, they are troubled and dejected, and encourage the yielding souls to rally their forces, and summon up the last remains of their strength. Meiner. The storm cloud grows deeper above, The Souls of the Strangers are there, In their garments of darkness they ride thro' the heaven, The cloud that so lurid rolls over the hill Is red with their weapons of fire. T |