New to heaven they mount away, All things decay-the forest like the leaf: Heavens with their hosts expire: But hope's fair visions, and the beams of joy, Ye Naiads, blue-eyed sisters of the wood! And charm the wandering moon. Beheld by poet's eye; inspire my dreams Fount of the forest! in thy poet's lays I ask to bind my brow. DANISH ODE. The great, the glorious deed is done! The raven claps his sable wings; With mighty ale the goblet crown: From danger's front, at battle's eve, The song bursts living from the lyre, The cloud comes o'er the beam of light; Send round the shell, the feast prolong, SWEET FRAGRANT BOWER. Sweet fragrant bow'r, where first I met I fancy still her form I see, From my rack'd mind depart. Her charming tongue such pleasure gave, As charm'd each shepherd to her bow'r, To kindred angels in the sky; THE WISH. Gie me not riches over much, But let Heav'n's blessings still be such Yet will I ne'er complain, Jo: For how can man be better plac'd Or what can be a sweeter feast Health mak's a sweet desert, Jo; Another blessing I'd implore, At gloamin', whan my task is o'er, Owre brecken brae, or thro' the grove, A friend, too, wad kind Heav'n indulge His kind advice cou'd gie, Jo, THE ADIEU. Ah! can I behold, love, that heart-rending sigh, The tear that bedims my dear Mary's fond eye? Can I kiss those lips of the coral's bright hue? And speak the sad word, lovely Mary, adieu! Can I view that fair face, that form so divine, Whom once flatt'ring hope whisper'd soon would be mine? Can I press to my bosom that heart so true? Can I think on thy smile, when at twilight we met? And thy last killing glance when next meeting was set? The love-gliding hours, ah! how fleetly they flew! Ne'er thought I, dear Mary, to bid thee adieu! But while this sad bosom can breathe a fond strain, Or while in my mind recollections remain, With love, my fair maid, shall it breathe still to you, Tho' forc'd, lovely Mary, to sigh now-adieu! ODE TO THE CUCKOO,1 Hail, beauteous stranger of the wood, Soon as the daisy decks the green, 1 This ode has been characterized by Edmund Burke as "the most beautiful lyric in the language." The original version appeared in 1770 among Bruce's poems. In 1781 Logan included it with some alterations in a collection of his own poems. Readers may judge for Delightful visitant! with thee I hail the time of flowers, The school boy wand'ring in the wood Soon as the pea puts on the bloom, An annual guest in other lands, Sweet bird! thy bow'r is ever green, Thy sky is ever clear; Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, O could I fly, I'd fly with thee: We'd make, with social wing, Our annual visit o'er the globe, Companions of the spring. themselves if his emendations are any advantage to the ode as first published :— Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove! What time the daisy decks the green, Delightful visitant! with thee I hail the time of flowers, The school-boy wandering through the wood, Starts, the new voice of spring to hear, And imitates thy lay. What time the pea puts on the bloom, Thou fliest thy vocal vale, An annual guest in other lands, Another spring to hail. Sweet bird thy bower is ever green, Thy sky is ever clear; Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, No winter in thy year! O could I fly, I'd fly with thee! An additional interest cannot but be felt in Bruce's ode if it, as Archbishop Trench thinks, suggested to a much greater poet one of his most lovely lyrics. "It was," he says, a favourite with Wordsworth, and one who listens attentively may catch a faint prelude of his immortal ode addressed to the same bird. "-ED. HECTOR MACNEILL. BORN 1746-DIED 1818. HECTOR MACNEILL was born October 22, | returned to his native land in poor health and 1746, at Rosebank, on the Esk, near Roslin; by no means prosperous circumstances. Taking and, to quote his own words, "amidst the mur- up his residence at Stirling, he entered upon mur of streams and the shades of Hawthornden a literary career, by publishing in 1789 "The may be said to have inhaled with life the Harp, a Legendary Tale," which met with but atmosphere of a poet.' He was sent by his little success. During the succeeding ten father, Captain Macneill, to the grammar years he divided his time between Jamaica school at Stirling, then under Dr. David Doig, and Scotland, at the expiration of which to whom in after-life the poet dedicated his period he found a friend in the person of Mr. popular composition "Scotland's Scaith, or the John Graham, a West India planter and former History of Will and Jean," of which 10,000 employer, who, at his death, left the poet an copies were sold in a single month. His annuity of £100 per annum. It was on this father's circumstances being such that he was gentleman's estate of Three-Mile-River that unable to give his son a university education, Macneill wrote "The Pastoral, or Lyric Muse he, at the age of fourteen, was withdrawn from of Scotland." He now took up his abode at his studies, and went to reside at Bristol with Edinburgh, where he was admitted to the Iris cousin, an opulent West India trader, who literary circles of that city, and numbered had noticed the shrewdness of his young name- among his friends James Sibbald, and Mrs. sake, and had engaged to provide for him. Hamilton, authoress of The Cottagers of GlenHe soon after made a trial of sea-life, but burnie. this proving distasteful, he entered the count- The poet being now in more easy circuming-house of a merchant in the island of stances, added to his income by systematic St. Christopher, to whom he had been re-literary efforts. He wrote several novels, and commended by his kinsman. He soon made for a time was the editor of the Scots Magahimself so valuable an assistant, that therezine. In 1801 he published an edition of his was every prospect of his being admitted to a partnership, when the whole tenor of his life was altered by a single imprudent kiss! His employer having admitted him to his house on terms of intimacy, Macneill so far forgot himself as to snatch a kiss from the lips of the merchant's young and beautiful wife, with whom he was seated in the garden. For this indiscretion he was dismissed. Macneill remained in the West Indies for nearly a quarter of a century, under circumstances less prosperous than those in which he began his career there. He appears to have filled various subordinate positions, and at one period to have been the manager of a sugar plantation in Jamaica, in which capacity he prepared a pamphlet in defence of the system of slavery in the West Indies. It was published in 1788, about which time Macneill poems in two volumes, which was followed by a second in 1806, and a third in 1812. Although himself possessing "The vision and the faculty divine," Macneill invariably warned all aspirants for poetic fame against embarking in the precarious pursuit of writing poetry as a means of support, or indeed to trusting to authorship of any kind. Writing to a friend in 1813 he says, "Accumulating years and infirmities are beginning to operate very sensibly upon me now, and yearly do I experience their increasing influence. . . . My pen is my chief amusement. Reading soon fatigues and loses its zest, composition never, till over-exertion reminds me of my imprudence." A few years after penning these lines the poet passed away, March 15, 1818, in his seventy-second year. passed by similar productions of any Scottish poet save Burns alone. Macneill's reputation rests chiefly upon his poem of "Will and Jean," first published in 1795. Between this production and Alexander An aged man, who in his youth knew MacWilson's "Watty and Meg" it would not per- neill, and frequently heard him sing his own haps be fair to institute a comparison. Our songs during the early years of the present author acknowledged his obligations to the century, described him to the writer as a tall American ornithologist, and availed himself fine-looking old man, of a sallow complexion, of all his own advantages. "The Waes o' fond of dress, with an exceedingly dignified War, or the Upshot o' the History o' Will and manner on ordinary occasions, but at a dinnerJean," issued in 1796, is also a simple and table he would unbend, and become with his pathetic strain, which speedily found its way songs and stories the gayest spirit of the comto the hearts of the people of Scotland. Several pany. He sang the old Jacobite lays of his of Macneill's songs, such as "Saw ye my Wee native land with deep feeling, and although Thing?" "My Boy Tammy," "Come under his voice was somewhat rough, his singing my Plaidie," and his touching ballad of was more admired than that of others possess"Donald and Flora," are well-known favouring more musical voices, but who lacked the ites, and enjoy a popularity perhaps unsur- poet's pathos and spirit. Trig her house, and oh! to busk aye Luckless was the hour whan Willie, Sax miles frae their hame and mair. Simmer's heat had lost its fury; Calmly smil'd the sober een; Lasses on the bleachfield hurry, Skelping bare-fit owre the green; Labour rang wi' laugh and clatter, Canty hairst was just begun, And on mountain, tree, and water, Glinted saft the setting sun. Will and Tam, wi' hearts a' lowpin, Markt the hale, but could nae bide; Far frae hame, nae time for stopping,Baith wish'd for their ain fireside. On they travell'd, warm and drouthy, Cracking owre the news in town; The mair they crack'd, the mair ilk youth aye Pray'd for drink to wash news down. Fortune, wha but seldom listens To poor merit's modest pray'r, And on fools heaps needless blessings, Harken'd to our drouthy pair. In a houm, whase bonnie burnie Whimperin row'd its crystal flood, Near the road whar travellers turn aye, Neat and bield a cot-house stood: White the wa's, wi' roof new theekit, Window broads just painted red: Lown 'mang trees and braes it reekit, Halflins seen and halflins hid. Up the gavel-end thick spreading Down below, a flow'ry meadow Join'd the burnie's rambling line; Here it was that Howe, the widow, That same day set up her sign. Brattling down the brae, and near its Bottom, Will first marv'ling sees, "Porter, Ale, and British Spirits" Painted bright between twa trees. "Dear me, Tam! here's walth for drinking! Wha can this new comer be!""Hout!" quo' Tam, "there's drouth in thinking; Let's in, Will, and syne we'll sec." Nae mair time they took to speak or Slocken'd now, refreshed, and talking, In cam' Meg (weel skill'd to please): "Sirs, ye're surely tir'd wi' walking Ye maun taste my bread and cheese." "Hout!" quo Tam, "what's a' the hurry? "Will, o'ercome wi' Tam's oration, After ae gill cam' anither Meg sat cracking 'tween them twa; Neebors wha ne'er thought to meet here, Jean, poor thing! had lang been greeting; Was set up at Maggie Howe's. PART II. Maist things hae a sma' beginning. But wha kens how things will end? Weekly clubs are nae great sinning, Gin folk hae enough to spend: But nae man o' sober thinking Ere will say that things can thrive, If there's spent in weekly drinking What keeps wife and weans alive. Drink maun aye hac conversation, Ilka social soul allows; |