Where her dark cat'racts tumbling from on high,
With rainbow arch aspiring to the sky?
Her tow'ring pines with fadeless wreaths entwin'd,
Her waving alders streaming to the wind?
Nor these alone,-her own, her fav'rite child,
All fire; all feeling; man untaught and wild;
Where can the lost, lone son of nature stray?
For art's high car is rolling on its way;
A wand'rer of the world, he flies to drown
The thoughts of days gone by and pleasures flown,
In the deep draught, whose dregs are death and woe
With slavery's iron chain conceal'd below.
Once thro' the tangled wood, with noiseless tread
And throbbing heart, the lurking warrior sped,
Aim'd his sure weapon, won the prize, and turn'd
While his high heart with wild ambition burn'd,
With song and war-whoop to his native tree,
There on its bark to carve the victory.
His all of learning did that act comprise,
But still in nature's volume doubly wise.
The wayward stream which once with idle bound,
Whirl'd on resistless in its foaming round,
Now curb'd by art flows on, a wat'ry chain
Linking the snow-capp'd mountains to the main.
Where once the alder in luxuriance grew,
Or the tall pine its towering branches threw
Abroad to Heaven, with dark and haughty brow,
There mark the realms of plenty smiling now;
There the full sheaf of Ceres richly glows,
And Plenty's fountain blesses as it flows;
And man, a brute when left to wander wild,
A reckless creature, nature's lawless child,
What boundless streams of knowledge rolling now,
From the full hand of art around him flow!
Improvement strides the surge, while from afar,
Learning rolls onward in her silver car;
Freedom unfurls her banner o'er his head,
While peace sleeps sweetly on her native bed.
The muse arises from the wildwood glen,
And chants her sweet and hallow'd song again,
As in those halcyon days, which bards have sung,
When hope was blushing, and when life was young
Thus shall she rise, and thus her sons shall rear
Her sacred temple here, and only here,
While Percival, her lov'd and chosen priest,
For ever blessing, tho' himself unblest,
Shall fan the fire that blazes at her shrine,
And charm the ear with numbers half divine.
LINES ADDRESSED TO A COUSIN.
She gave me a flow'ret, - and oh! it was sweet! 'T was a pea, in full bloom, with its dark crimson leaf,
And I said in my heart, this shall be thy retreat! 'Tis one "sacred to Friendship" - a stranger to grief.
In my bosom I placed it, - 't is withered and gone! All its freshness, its beauty, its fragrance had fled! And in sorrow I sigh'd, am I thus left alone?
Is the gift which I cherish'd quite faded and dead?
It has wither'd! but she who presented it blooms,
Still fresh and unfading, in memory here!
And through life shall here flourish, 'mid danger and
As sweet as the flower, though more lasting and
(Written in her sixteenth year.)
There is a sweet, tho' humble flower,
Which grows in nature's wildest bed;
It blossoms in the lonely bower,
But withers 'neath the gazer's tread.
'Tis rear'd alone, far, far away
From the wild noxious weeds of death,
Around its brow the sunbeams play,
The evening dew-drop is its wreath.
'Tis Modesty; 't is nature's child;
The loveliest, sweetest, meekest flower
That ever blossom'd in the wild,
Or trembled 'neath the evening shower.
'Tis Modesty; so pure, so fair,
That woman's witch'ries lovelier grow, When that sweet flower is blooming there, The brightest beauty of her brow.
When bending o'er the brink of life,
My trembling soul shall stand,
Waiting to pass death's awful flood,
Great God! at thy command.
When weeping friends surround my bed,
To close my sightless eyes,
When shattered by the weight of years
This broken body lies;
When every long-lov'd scene of life
Stands ready to depart,
When the last sigh which shakes this frame
Shall rend this bursting heart;
Oh thou great source of joy supreme,
Whose arm alone can save,
Dispel the darkness that surrounds
The entrance to the grave.
Lay thy supporting gentle hand
Beneath my sinking head,
And with a ray of love divine,
Illume my dying bed.
Leaning on thy dear faithful breast,
I would resign my breath,
And in thy loved embraces lose
The bitterness of death.
ROB ROY'S REPLY TO FRANCIS OSBALDISTONE.
The heather I trod while breathing on earth,
Must bloom o'er my grave in the land of my birth; My warm heart would shrink like the fern in the
If the tops of my hills to my dim eye were cost.
RECOVERING FROM SICKNESS.
(Written in her fifteenth year.)
There is a charm in the pallid cheek;
A charm which the tongue can never speak,
When the hand of sickness has wither'd awhile,
The rose which had bloom'd in the rays of a smile.
There is a charm in the heavy eye,
When the tear of sorrow is passing by,
Like a summer shower o'er yon vault of blue,
Or the violet trembling 'neath drops of dew.
It spreads around a shade as light
As daylight blending with the night;
Or 'tis like the tints of an evening sky,
And soft as the breathing of sorrow's sigh.
(Written in her fifteenth year.)
'Twas evening - all was calm and silent, save
The low hoarse dashing of the distant wave;
The whip-poor-will had clos'd his pensive lay,
Which sweetly mourned the sun's declining ray;
Tired of a world surcharged with pain and woe,
Weary of heartless forms and all below,
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