O Mary! dear departed shade!

Where is thy place of blissful rest?

See'st thou thy lover lowly laid ?

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast!

That sacred hour can I forget,

Can I forget the hallow'd grove, Where by the winding Ayr we met, To live one day of parting love!

Eternity will not efface,

Those records dear of transports past;
Thy image at our last embrace!
Ah! little thought we 'twas our last!

Ayr gurgling kissed his pebbled shore,
O'erhung with wild woods, thick'ning, green;
The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar,
Twin'd amorous round the raptur'd scene.
The flowers sprang wanton to be prest,
The birds sang love on every spray,
Till too, too soon, the glowing west,
Proclaim'd the speed of winged day.

Still o'er these scenes my mem'ry wakes,
And fondly broods with miser care!
Time but the impression deeper makes,
As streams their channels deeper wear.
My Mary! dear departed shade!
Where is thy blissful place of rest?
See'st thou thy lover lowly laid?

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?

ELEGY

ON THE LATE MISS BURNET,

OF MONBODDO.

LIFE ne'er exulted in so rich a prize,
As Burnet lovely, from her native skies;
Nor envious Death so triumph'd in a blow,
As that which laid the accomplished Burnet low.

Thy form and mind, sweet maid, can I forget?
In richest ore the brightest jewel set!
In thee, high Heaven above was truest shown,
As by his noblest work the Godhead best is known.

In vain ye flaunt in summer's pride, ye groves;
Thou crystal streamlet with thy flowery shore;
Ye woodland choir that chant your idle loves,
Ye cease to charm Eliza is no more!

Ye heathy wastes, immix'd with reedy fens;
Ye mossy streams, with sedge and rushes stor'd;
Ye rugged cliffs, o'erhanging dreary glens,
To you I fly, ye with my soul accord.

Princes, whose cumb'rous pride was all their worth,
Shall venal lays their pompous exit hail?
And thou, sweet excellence! forsake our earth,
And not a muse in honest grief bewail!

We saw thee shine in youth and beauty's pride,
And virtue's light, that beams beyond

beyond the spheres:

But like the sun eclips'd at morning tide,

Thou left'st us darkling in a world of tears

The parent's heart that nestled fond in thee,
That heart how sunk, a prey to grief and care;
So decked the woodbine sweet yon aged tree,
So from it ravish'd, leaves it bleak and bare.

VERSES

ON READING, IN A NEWSPAPER, THE DEATH OF JOHN M'LEOD, ESQ. BROTHER TO A YOUNG LADY, A PARTICULAR FRIEND OF THE AUTHOR'S.

SAD thy tale, thou idle page,
And rueful thy alarms:
Death tears the brother of her love
From Isabella's arms.

Sweetly deck'd with pearly dew
The morning rose may blow;
But cold, successive noontide blasts
May lay its beauties low.

Fair on Isabella's morn

The sun propitious smil'd;
But, long ere noon, succeeding clouds
Succeeding hopes beguil'd.

Fate oft tears the bosom chords
That Nature finest strung:
So Isabella's heart was form'd,
And so that heart was wrung,

Dread Omnipotence, alone

Can heal the wound he gave;
Can point the brimful grief-worn eyes
To scenes beyond the grave,

Virtue's blossoms there shall blow,
And fear no withring blast:
There Isabella's spotless worth
Shall happy be at last.

SONNET

ON THE DEATH OF ROBERT RIDDEL, ESQ. OF GLEN RIDDEL, APRIL, 1794.

No more, ye warblers of the wood, no more,
Nor pour your descant, grating on my soul:
Thou young-eyed Spring, gay in thy verdant stole,
More welcome were to me grim Winter's wildest

roar.

How can ye charm, ye flow'rs, with all your dyes? Ye blow upon the sod that wraps my friend: How can I to the tuneful strain attend ?

That strain flows round th' untimely tomb where

Riddel lies.

Yes, pour, ye warblers, pour the notes of wo, And sooth the Virtues weeping on this bier: The Man of Worth, and has not left his peer, Is in his "narrow house" for ever darkly low.

Thee, Spring, again with joy shall others greet;
Me, mem'ry of my loss will only meet.

VERSES

ON THE DEATH OF SIR JAMES HUNTER BLAIR.

THE lamp of day, with ill-presaging glare,

Dim, cloudly, sunk beneath the western wave; Th' inconstant blast howl'd thro' the darkening air, And hollow whistled in the rocky cave.

Lone as I wander'd by each cliff and dell,

Once the lov'd haunts of Scotia's royal train ;*
Or mus'd where limpid streams, once hallow'd well,t
Or mould'ring ruins mark the sacred fane ;‡

Th' increasing blast roar'd round the beetling rocks,
The clouds, swift-wing'd flew o'er the starry sky,
The groaning trees untimely shed their locks,
And shooting meteors caught the startled eye.

The paly moon rose in the livid east,

And 'mong the cliffs disclos'd a stately Form, In weeds of wo that frantic beat her breast, And mix'd her wailings with the raving storm.

* The King's Park, at Holyrood-house.
† St. Anthony's Well.

St. Anthony's Chapel.