The same cool murmur to thy tranquil ear: And sweet it is to stretch thy limbs in shade Beside the man thou lov'st, and feel the hours In blithest converse, with the rivulet's haste Glide fast away. By secret sympathy The tender wife, amid the city's crowds Perchance a while forgotten, twines in sleep Around the fibres of the conscious brain; And the heart melts, to know that placid smile So fond and so confiding: then the gloom Of midnight brightens: 'tis the scene of home ! Beneath noon's azure arch the sunny field Spreads green its flowery grass: he looks, he sees The graceful boy's clear eye, and forehead pure As very snow; he sees his crisped locks Unravelling on the breeze their flaxen rings, The whilst his bounding feet elastic leap Among the meadow-lambs and hedge-row birds, The fellows of his pastime: Lo! again- The fire-side light reflects on rubied cheeks, And little hands are twin'd within his grasp; The prattled tale, the scream of merriment, The babe's sweet laughter and half-tottering step, The mother's gaze of modest ardency,
All, all are present; and the well-known group Dawns like a vision on the slumbering man. O gentle Sleep! thy silent potency Can teach the happy keener happiness; Can cheer the wretched with a glimpse of bliss. Nay-the dark grave is open'd; and the form Of loveliness that slept, once more awakes; And blooms, and smiles, and musically speaks, And fires the brain with such delirious joy, That, oh! it were felicity to dream
For ever thus, nor wake, unless in heaven.
WHAT is th' existence of man's life But open war, or slumber'd strife; Where sickness to his sense presents The combat of the elements; And never feels a perfect peace, Till death's cold hand signs his release?
It is a storm, where the hot blood Outvies in rage the boiling flood; And each loose passion of the mind Is like a furious gust of wind,
Which beats his bark with many a wave, Till he casts anchor in the grave.
It is a flower, which buds, and grows, And withers as the leaves disclose ; Whose spring and fall faint seasons keep, Like fits of waking before sleep; Then shrinks into that fatal mould Where its first being was enroll'd.
It is a dream, whose seeming truth Is moraliz'd in age and youth; Where all the comforts he can share As wand'ring as his fancies are; Till in a mist of dark decay The dreamer vanish quite away.
It is a dial which points out The sun-set, as it moves about;
And shadows out in lines of night The subtle stages of time's flight; Till all-obscuring earth hath laid The body in perpetual shade.
It is a weary interlude,
Which doth short joys, long woes include; The world the stage, the prologue tears, The acts vain hopes and varied fears; The scene shuts up with loss of breath, And leaves no epilogue but death.
YE hills of my country, soft-fading in blue, The seats of my childhood, for ever adieu ! Yet not for a brighter your sky I resign, When my wand'ring footsteps revisit the Rhine; But sacred to me is the roar of the wave
That mingles its tide with the blood of the brave, Where the blasts of the trumpets for battle combine,
And the heart was laid low that gave rapture to mine.
Ye scenes of remembrance that sorrow beguil'd, Your uplands I leave for the desolate wild; For nature is nought to the eye of despair But the image of hopes that have vanish'd in air: Again, ye fair blossoms of flower and of tree, Ye shall bloom to the morn, tho' ye bloom not for
Again your lone wood-paths, that wind by the stream,
Be the haunt of the lover-to hope-and to dream.
But never to me shall the summer renew
The bowers where the days of my happiness flew; Where my soul found her partner, and thought to bestow
The colours of heav'n on the dwellings of woe! Too faithful recorders of times that are past, The Eden of Love that was ever to last! Once more may soft accents your wild echoes fill, And the young and the happy be worshippers still.
To me ye are lost!-but your summits of green Shall charm thro' the distance of many a scene, In woe, and in wand'ring, and deserts, return Like the soul of the dead to the perishing urn! Ye hills of my country! farewell ever more, As I cleave the dark waves of your rock-rugged shore,
And ask of the hovering gale if it come
From the pak-tow'ring woods on the mountains of home.
BREATHES there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd, As home his footsteps he hath turn'd
From wandering on a foreign strand? If such there breathe, go mark him well; For him no minstrel raptures swell; High tho' his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.
O Caledonia! stern and wild, Meet nurse for a poetic child!
Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, Land of the mountain and the flood, Land of my sires! what mortal hand Can e'er untie the filial band
That knits me to thy rugged strand! Still as I view each well-known scene,
Think what is now, and what hath been, Seems as to me, of all bereft,
Sole friends thy woods and streams were left; And thus I love them better still,
Even in extremity of ill.
By Yarrow's stream still let me stray,
Tho' none should guide my feeble way;
Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break,
Altho' it chill my wither'd cheek; Still lay my head by Teviot stone, Tho' there forgotten and alone
The Bard may draw his parting groan.
'Twas eve's pensive twilight, the valley was grey, Between the dark trees almost deepen'd to night; And the golden-streak'd west seem'd the memory of day;
The brook yet reflected the soft amber light.
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