SCENES OF INFANCY.

PART I.

Ben sanno i verdi poggi, e le sonanti
Selve romite, e l'acque

Che son le mie ricchezze inni soavi:
Alor la cetra consacrar mi piacque —

MENZINI.

SCENES OF INFANCY.

PART I.

SWEET scenes of youth, to faithful memory dear,
Still fondly cherish'd with the sacred tear,
When, in the soften'd light of summer-skies,
Full on my soul life's first illusions rise!

Sweet scenes of youthful bliss, unknown to pain!

I come, to trace your soothing haunts again,
To mark each grace that pleas'd my stripling prime,
By absence hallow'd, and endear'd by time,

To lose amid your winding dells the past:

Ah! must I think this lingering look the last?
Ye lovely vales, that met my earliest view!
How soft ye smil'd, when Nature's charms were new!
Green was her vesture, glowing, fresh, and warm,
And every opening grace had power to charm;
While as each scene in living lustre rose,

Each young emotion wak'd from soft repose.

E'en as I muse, my former life returns, And youth's first ardour in my bosom burns. Like music melting in a lover's dream,

I hear the murmuring song of Teviot's stream:

* The river Teviot, which gives its name to the district of Teviotdale, rises in an elevated mountainous tract in the south of Scotland, from a rude rock, termed the Teviot-stone, descends through a beautiful pastoral dale, and falls into the Tweed at Kelso. The vale of the river is above thirty miles in length, and comprehends every variety of wild, picturesque, and beautiful scenery. The first part of its course is confined, and overshadowed by abrupt and savage hills, diversified with smooth green declivities, and fantastic copses ofnatural wood. Beneath Hawick the vale opens, and several beautiful mountain-streams fall into the river. The meadow-ground becomes more extensive, and the declivities more susceptible of cultivation; but, in the distance, dark heaths are still seen descending from the mountains, which at intervals encroach on the green banks of the river. As the stream approaches the Tweed, the scenery becomes gradually softer, and in the vicinity of Kelso rivals the beauty of an Italian landscape. The name of Teviotdale, a term of very considerable antiquity, is not confined solely to the vale of the river, but comprehends the county of Roxburgh. In ancient times, its acceptation was still more extensive, including the tract of country which lies between the ridge of Cheviot and the banks of the Tweed. The inhabitants of this frontier-district, inured to war from their infancy, had at an early period of Scottish history attained a high military reputation; and the term Teridalenses, or men of Teviotdale, seems to have been once employed as a general epithet for the Dalesmen in the south of Scotland. They devoted themselves to the life of the predatory warrior and the shepherd; and the intervals of their incursions were often employed in celebrating their martial exploits.