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THE VISION.

Still, as in Scottish story read,

She boasts a race

To every nobler virtue bred,

And polished grace.

By stately tower or palace fair,

Or ruins pendent in the air,

Bold stems of heroes, here and there,

I could discern;

DUAN SECOND.

WITH musing deep, astonished stare,
I viewed the heavenly-seeming fair;
A whispering throb did witness bear
Of kindred sweet,

When, with an elder sister's air,
She did me greet:-

Some seemed to muse-some seemed to dare, All hail! my own inspired bard!

With feature stern.

My heart did glowing transport feel,
To see a race heroic wheel,

And brandish round the deep-dyed steel
In sturdy blows;

While back-recoiling seemed to reel
Their Suthron foes.

His country's saviour, mark him well!
Bold Richardton's heroic swell;
The chief on Sark who glorious fell,
In high command;

And he whom ruthless fates expel
His native land.

There, where a sceptered Pictish shade
Stalked round his ashes lowly laid,
I marked a martial race, portrayed
In colors strong;

Bold, soldier-featured, undismayed,
They strode along.

Through many a wild, romantic grove,
Near many a hermit-fancied cove
(Fit haunts for friendship or for love),
In musing mood,

An aged judge, I saw him rove,
Dispensing good.

With deep-struck reverential awe
The learned sire and son I saw :
To nature's God and nature's law
They gave their lore;
This, all its source and end to draw-
That, to adore.

Brydone's brave ward I well could spy
Beneath old Scotia's smiling eye,
Who called on Fame, low standing by,
To hand him on
Where many a patriot-name on high,
And hero shone.

In me thy native Muse regard;
Nor longer mourn thy fate is hard,
Thus poorly low!

I come to give thee such reward
As we bestow.

Know the great genius of this land
Has many a light aerial band,
Who, all beneath his high command,
Harmoniously,

As arts or arms they understand,
Their labors ply.

They Scotia's race among them share:
Some fire the soldier on to dare;
Some rouse the patriot up to bare
Corruption's heart;
Some teach the bard-a darling care-
The tuneful art.

'Mong swelling floods of reeking gore They ardent, kindling spirits pour; Or 'mid the venal senate's roar

They, sightless, stand, To mend the honest patriot lore, And grace the land.

And when the bard, or hoary sage,
Charm or instruct the future age,
They bind the wild poetic rage
In energy,
Or point the inconclusive page
Full on the eye.

Hence Fullarton, the brave and young;
Hence Dempster's zeal-inspired tongue;
Hence sweet harmonious Beattie sung
His minstrel lays;
Or tore, with noble ardor stung,
The sceptic's bays.

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To lower orders are assigned

The humbler ranks of human kind:
The rustic bard, the lab'ring hind,
The artisan-

All choose, as various they 're inclined,
The various man.

When yellow waves the heavy grain,
The threat'ning storm some strongly rein;
Some teach to meliorate the plain

With tillage skill;

And some instruct the shepherd train, Blythe o'er the hill.

Some hint the lover's harmless wile;
Some grace the maiden's artless smile;
Some sooth the lab'rer's weary toil
For humble gains,
And make his cottage-scenes beguile
His cares and pains.

Some, bounded to a district-space,
Explore at large man's infant race,
To mark the embryotic trace,
Of rustic bard;

And careful note each op'ning grace-
A guide and guard.

Of these am I-Coila my name;
And this district as mine I claim,
Where once the Campbells, chiefs of fame,
Held ruling pow'r;

I marked thy embryo tuneful flame,
Thy natal hour.

With future hope I oft would gaze,
Fond, on thy little early ways,
Thy rudely carolled, chiming phrase
In uncouth rhymes,
Fired at the simple artless lays
Of other times.

I saw thee seek the sounding shore,
Delighted with the dashing roar;
Or when the North his fleecy store
Drove through the sky,
I saw grim Nature's visage hoar

Struck thy young eye.

Or when the deep green-mantled earth Warm cherished every flow'ret's birth,

And joy and music pouring forth
In every grove,

I saw thee eye the general mirth
With boundless love.

When ripened fields and azure skies
Called forth the reapers' rustling noise,
I saw thee leave their evening joys,
And lonely stalk

To vent thy bosom's swelling rise
In pensive walk.

When youthful love, warm-blushing, strong,
Keen-shivering shot thy nerves along,
Those accents grateful to thy tongue,
Th' adored name,

I taught thee how to pour in song,
To sooth thy flame.

I saw thy pulse's maddening play
Wild send thee pleasure's devious way,
Misled by fancy's meteor ray,

By passion driven;

But yet the light that led astray

Was light from Heaven.

I taught thy manners-painting strains,
The loves, the ways of simple swains-
Till now, o'er all my wide domains
Thy fame extends,

And some, the pride of Coila's plains,
Become thy friends.

Thou canst not learn, nor can I show,
To paint with Thomson's landscape glow;
Or wake the bosom-melting throe,

With Shenstone's art;
Or pour, with Gray, the moving flow
Warm on the heart.

Yet all beneath th' unrivalled rose
The lowly daisy sweetly blows;
Though large the forest's monarch throws
His army shade,

Yet green the juicy hawthorn grows
Adown the glade.

Then never murmur nor repine;
Strive in thy humble sphere to shine;
And trust me, not Potosi's mine,
Nor kings' regard,

Can give a bliss o'ermatching thine,
A rustic bard.

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Let friendship pour her brightest blaze,

Expanding all the bloom of soul; And mirth concentre all her rays,

And point them from the sparkling bowl; And let the careless moments roll In social pleasures unconfined, And confidence that spurns control, Unlock the inmost springs of mind!

And lead his steps those bowers among, Where elegance with splendor vies, Or science bids her favored throng

To more refined sensations rise; Beyond the peasant's humbler joys,

And freed from each laborious strife, There let him learn the bliss to prize

That waits the sons of polished life.

Then, whilst his throbbing veins beat high
With every impulse of delight,
Dash from his lips the cup of joy,

And shroud the scene in shades of night; And let despair with wizard light

Disclose the yawning gulf below, And pour incessant on his sight

Her spectred ills and shapes of woe;

And show beneath a cheerless shed,
With sorrowing heart and streaming eyes,
In silent grief where droops her head
The partner of his early joys;
And let his infants' tender cries

His fond parental succour claim,
And bid him hear in agonies

A husband's and a father's name.

'Tis done the powerful charm succeeds; His high reluctant spirit bends;

In bitterness of soul he bleeds,

Nor longer with his fate contends.

An idiot laugh the welkin rends

As genius thus degraded lies;
Till pitying Heaven the veil extends
That shrouds the poet's ardent eyes.

Rear high thy bleak majestic hills,

Thy sheltered valleys proudly spread, And, Scotia, pour thy thousand rills,

And wave thy heaths with blossoms red;

But never more shall poet tread

Thy airy heights, thy woodland reignSince he, the sweetest bard, is dead That ever breathed the soothing strain. WILLIAM ROSCOE

AT THE GRAVE OF BURNS.

SEVEN YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH.

I SHIVER, Spirit fierce and bold,
At thought of what I now behold:
As vapors breathed from dungeons cold
Strike pleasure dead,

So sadness comes from out the mould
Where Burns is laid.

And have I then thy bones so near,
And thou forbidden to appear?
As if it were thyself that's here,
I shrink with pain;

And both my wishes and my fear
Alike are vain.

Off weight,-nor press on weight!-away Dark thoughts!-they came, but not to stay; With chastened feelings would I pay

The tribute due

To him, and aught that hides his clay
From mortal view.

Fresh as the flower whose modest worth
He sang, his genius "glinted" forth—
Rose like a star that, touching earth,
(For so it seems)
Doth glorify its humble birth

With matchless beams.

The piercing eye, the thoughtful brow,
The struggling heart, where be they now ?—
Full soon the aspirant of the plough,
The prompt, the brave,
Slept, with the obscurest, in the low
And silent grave.

I mourned with thousands-but as one
More deeply grieved; for he was gone
Whose light I hailed when first it shone,
And showed my youth
How verse may build a princely throne
On humble truth.

Alas! where'er the current tends
Regret pursues and with it blends!
Huge Criffel's hoary top ascends

By Skiddaw seen;
Neighbors we were, and loving friends
We might have been-

BURNS.

True friends, though diversely inclined;
But heart with heart and mind with mind,
Where the main fibres are entwined
Through nature's skill,

May even by contraries be joined
More closely still.

The tear will start, and let it flow;
Thou "poor inhabitant below,"
At this dread moment-even so-
Might we together

Have sat and talked where gowans blow,
Or on wild heather.

What treasures would have then been placed Within my reach! of knowledge graced By fancy what a rich repast!

But why go on ?—

O. spare to sweep, thou mournful blast,
His grave grass-grown.

There, too, a son, his joy and pride,
(Not three weeks past the stripling died,)
Lies gathered to his father's side-
Soul-moving sight!

Yet one to which is not denied
Some sad delight.

For he is safe, a quiet bed

Hath early found among the dead—
Harbored where none can be misled,
Wronged, or distrest;

And surely here it may be said
That such are blest.

And O! for thee, by pitying grace
Checked ofttimes in a devious race-
May He who halloweth the place
Where man is laid,

Receive thy spirit in the embrace
For which it prayed!

Sighing, I turned away; but ere
Night fell I heard, or seemed to hear,
Music that sorrow comes not near-
A ritual hymn,

Chanted, in love that casts out fear,
By seraphim.

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637

DAY FOLLOWING, ON THE

BANKS OF NITH, NEAR THE POET'S RESIDENCE.

Too frail to keep the lofty vow

That must have followed when his brow Was wreathed-"The Vision" tells us how

With holly spray,

He faltered, drifted to and fro, And passed away.

Well might such thoughts, dear sister, throng

Our minds when, lingering all too long,
Over the grave of Burns we hung
In social grief,—

Indulged as if it were a wrong
To seek relief.

But, leaving each unquiet theme
Where gentlest judgments may misdeem,
And prompt to welcome every gleam
Of good and fair,

Let us beside this limpid stream
Breathe hopeful air.

Enough of sorrow, wreck, and blight!
Think rather of those moments bright
When to the consciousness of right
His course was true-
When wisdom prospered in his sight,
And virtue grew.

Yes, freely let our hearts expand,
Freely as in youth's season bland,
When, side by side, his book in hand,
We wont to stray,

Our pleasure varying at command
Of each sweet lay.

How oft, inspired, must he have trod
These pathways, yon far-stretching road!
There lurks his home; in that abode,
With mirth elate,
Or in his nobly pensive mood,

The rustic sate.

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