Слике страница
PDF
ePub

A creature of another kind,

Some coarser substance, unrefined,

Placed for her lordly use thus far, thus vile, below.
Where, where is Love's fond, tender throe,
With lordly Honour's lofty brow,

The powers you proudly own?
Is there, beneath Love's noble name,
Can harbour, dark, the selfish aim,
To bless himself alone?
Mark maiden-innocence a prey
To love-pretending snares,
This boasted Honour turns away,
Shunning soft Pity's rising sway,

Regardless of the tears, and unavailing prayers!
Perhaps, this hour, in Misery's squalid nest,
She strains your infant to her joyless breast,
And with a mother's fears shrinks at the rocking
blast!

'O ye! who, sunk in beds of down,
Feel not a want but what yourselves create,
Think, for a moment, on his wretched fate,
Whom friends and fortune quite disown!
Ill-satisfied keen Nature's clamorous call,

Stretch'd on his straw he lays himself to sleep,
While through the ragged roof and chinky wall,
Chill o'er his slumbers piles the drifty heap!
Think on the dungeon's grim confine,
Where guilt and poor misfortune pine !
Guilt, erring man, relenting view!
But shall thy legal rage pursue
The wretch, already crushed low
By cruel Fortune's undeserved blow?

C

Affliction's sons are brothers in distress;

A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss!'

I heard nae mair, for Chanticleer
Shook off the pouthery suaw,

And hail'd the morning with a cheer,
A cottage-rousing craw.

But deep this truth impress'd my mind—
Through all his works abroad,
The heart, benevolent and kind,
The most resembles God.

STANZAS.

THE lazy mist hangs from the brow of the hill,
Concealing the course of the dark-winding rill.
How languid the scenes, late so sprightly, appear,
As autumn to winter resigns the pale year!
The forests are leafless, the meadows are brown,
And all the gay foppery of summer is flown:
Apart let me wander, apart let me muse,
How quick time is flying, how keen fate pursues;
How long I have lived, but how much lived in vain :
How little of life's scanty span may remain :
What aspects old Time, in his progress, has worn;
What ties cruel Fate in my bosom has torn.
How foolish, or worse, till our summit is gain'd!
And downward, how weaken'd, how darken'd, how
pain'd!

This life's not worth having, with all it can give,
For something beyond it poor man sure must live.

DESPONDENCY.

AN ODE.

OPPRESS'D with grief, oppress'd with care,
A burden more than I can bear,
I sit me down and sigh:
O life! thou art a galling load,
Along a rough, a weary road,
To wretches such as I!

Dim backward as I cast my view,
What sickening scenes appear!
What sorrows yet may pierce me through,
Too justly I may fear!

Still caring, despairing,

Must be my bitter doom;

My woes here shall close ne'er,
But with the closing tomb!

Happy, ye sons of busy life,
Who, equal to the bustling strife,
No other view regard!

E'en when the wished end's denied,
Yet while the busy means are plied,
They bring their own reward:
Whilst I, a hope-abandon'd wight,
Unfitted with an aim,

Meet every sad returning night
And joyless morn the same :
You, bustling, and justling,
Forget each grief and pain;

I, listless, yet restless,
Find every prospect vain.

How blest the solitary's lot,
Who, all-forgetting, all-forgot,
Within his humble cell,

The cavern wild with tangling roots,
Sits o'er his newly-gather'd fruits,
Beside his crystal well!

Or, haply, to his evening thought,
By unfrequented stream,

The ways of men are distant brought,
A faint-collected dream :

While praising, and raising

His thoughts to heaven on high,

As wand'ring, meand'ring,

He views the solemn sky.

Than I, no lonely hermit placed
Where never human footstep traced,
Less fit to play the part;

The lucky moment to improve,
And just to stop, and just to move,
With self-respecting art :

But, ah! those pleasures, loves, and joys,

Which I too keenly taste,

The solitary can despise,

Can want, and yet be blest!

He needs not, he heeds not,

Or human love or hate,
Whilst I here must cry here,
At perfidy ingrate !

O! enviable, early days,

When dancing thoughtless pleasure's maze, To care, to guilt unknown!

How ill-exchanged for riper times,
To feel the follies or the crimes
Of others, or my own!

Ye tiny elves, that guiltless sport,
Like linnets in the bush,
Ye little know the ills ye court,
When manhood is your wish!
The losses, the crosses,

That active man engage!
The fears all, the tears all,
Of dim declining age!

LIBERTY.

A FRAGMENT.

THEE, Caledonia, thy wild heaths among,
Thee, famed for martial deed and sacred song,
To thee I turn with swimming eyes.
Where is that soul of freedom fled?
Immingled with the mighty dead,

Beneath that hallow'd turf where Wallace lies'
Hear it not, Wallace, in thy bed of death!
Ye babbling winds, in silence sweep;
Disturb not ye the hero's sleep,

Nor give the coward secret breath.-
Is this the power in freedom's war
That wont to bid the battle rage?
Behold that eye which shot immortal hate,
Crushing the despot's proudest bearing;
That arm which, nerved with thundering fate,
Braved usurpation's boldest daring!

One quench'd in darkness like the sinking star, And one the palsied arm of tottering, powerless age.

« ПретходнаНастави »