Compared with this, how poor religion's pride, In all the pomp of method and of art, When men display to congregations wide Devotion's every grace, except the heart! The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole: But, haply, in some cottage far apart, May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul; And in his book of life the inmates poor enroll. Then homeward all take off their several way; For them and for their little ones provide; But, chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside. From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, The cottage leaves the palace far behind. O Scotia! my dear, my native soil! For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent! Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content! And, oh! may Heaven their simple lives prevent From luxury's contagion, weak and vile! Then, howe'er crown and coronets be rent, A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved isle. O Thou! who pour'd the patriotic tide That stream'd through Wallace's undaunted heart; Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride, Or nobly die, the second glorious part, (The patriot's God, peculiarly Thou art, His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!) Oh, never, never, Scotia's realm desert; But still the patriot, and the patriot-bard, In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard! THE LAST DAY. ROBERT POLLOK-“THe course of TIME.' "" In customed glory bright, that morn the sun Fled from his face; the spacious sky received No sign was there of change; all nature moved Of loss and profit balancing, relieved With subtile look, amid his parchments sate, The lawyer, weaving his sophistries for court To meet at mid-day. On his weary couch Fat luxury, sick of the night's debauch, Lay groaning, fretful at the obtrusive beam That through his lattice peeped derisively. The restless miser had begun again To count his heaps; before her toilet stood The fair, and, as with guileful skill she decked Her loveliness, thought of the coming ball, New lovers, or the sweeter nuptial night. And evil men of desperate lawless life, By oath of deep damnation leagued to all Remorselessly, fled from the face of day, Against the innocent their counsel held, Plotting unpardonable deeds of blood, And villanies of fearful magnitude; Despots, secured behind a thousand bolts, For fame, heroes were leading on the brave Improvements vast; and learned sceptics proved No sign of change appeared; to every man The earth came night, moonless and starless night. Came fear and trembling; none to his neighbour spoke; Husband thought not of wife; nor of her child And, as they stood and listened, chariots were heard All motionless, and fettered every tongue. Of immortality! Awake; arise! The God of judgment comes.-This said the voice;— And silence, from eternity that slept Beyond the sphere of the creating word, And all the noise of Time, awakening, heard. Heaven heard, and earth, and farthest hell through all Her regions of despair; the ear of Death Heard, and the sleep that for so long a night Pressed on his leaden eyelids, fled; and all The dead awoke, and all the living changed. Old men, that on their staff, bending had leaned, Crazy and frail; or sat, benumbed with age, In weary listlessness, ripe for the grave, Felt through their sluggish veins and withered limbs New vigour flow;-the wrinkled face grew smooth; Upon the head that time had razored bare, Rose bushy locks; and as his son in prime Of strength and youth, the aged father stood. Changing herself, the mother saw her son Grow up, and suddenly put on the form Of manhood; and the wretch that begging sat Limbless, deformed, at the corner of the way, Unmindful of his crutch, in joint and limb Arose complete; and he that on the bed Of mortal sickness, worn with sore distress, Lay breathing forth his soul to death, felt now The tide of life and vigour rushing back; And looking up, beheld his weeping wife, And daughter fond, that o'er him bending stooped To close his eyes;-the frantic madman too, In whose confused brain reason had lost Her way, long driven at random to and fro, Grew sober, and his manacles fell off. The newly sheeted corpse arose, and stared On those who dressed it;—and the coffined dead, That men were bearing to the tomb, awoke, And mingled with their friends;-and armies, which The trump surprised, met in the furious shock Of battle, saw the bleeding ranks, new failen, Rise up at once, and to their ghastly cheeks Return the stream of life in healthy flow. And as the anatomist, with all his band Of rude disciples, o'er the subject hung, And impolitely hewed his way through bones And muscles of the sacred human form, Exposing barbarously to wanton gaze The mysteries of nature-joint embraced His kindred joint, the wounded flesh grew up, And suddenly the injured man awoke, Among their hands, and stood arrayed complete |