Far may we search before we find Shall friends alone and kindred mourn; And frequent falls the grateful due, For many a kindly word and deed, To bring my tribute to his grave :— 'Tis little-but 'tis all I have. To thee, perchance, this rambling strain Recalls our summer walks again; When, doing nought,-and, to speak true, Not anxious to find aught to do,The wild unbounded hills we ranged, While oft our talk its topic changed, And, desultory as our way, Ranged unconfined, from grave to gay. Even when it flagg'd, as oft will chance, No effort made to break its trance, 1 Pandour and Camp, with eyes of fire, Not Ariel lived more merrily Under the blossom'd bough, than we. And blithesome nights, too, have been ours, Careless we heard, what now I hear, The wild blast sighing deep and drear, When fires were bright, and lamps beam'd gay, And ladies tuned the lovely lay; And he was held a laggard soul, Who shunn'd to quaff the sparkling bowl. Camp was a favourite dog of the Poet's, a bull-terrier of extraordinary sagacity. He is introduced in Raeburn's portrait of Sir Walter Scott, now at Dalkeith Palace. Then he, whose absence we deplore,1 Who breathes the gales of Devon's shore, And thou, and I, and dear-loved R-,2 And one whose name I may not say,- Shrinks sooner from the touch than he,- For, like mad Tom's, our chiefest care, Was horse to ride, and weapon wear. Such nights we've had; and, though the game Of manhood be more sober tame, And though the field-day, or the drill, Seem less important now-yet still 1 Colin Mackenzie, Esq. of Portmore. 2 Sir William Rae of St. Catherine's, Bart., subsequently Lord Advocate of Scotland, was a distinguished member of the volunteer corps to which Sir Walter Scott belonged; and he, the Poet, Mr. Skene, Mr. Mackenzie, and a few other friends, had formed themselves into a little semi-military club, the meetings of which were held at their family supper-tables in rotation. 3 John Hay Forbes, Esq., Advocate, a judge of the Court of Session, by title of Lord Medwyn, was another member of this volunteer corps and club. 4 See King Lear. |