When stubborn Russ, and metal'd Swede, On the warped wave their death-game played; Or that, where vengeance and affright Howl'd round the father of the fight, Who snatched on Alexandria's sand The conqueror's wreath with dying hand. "Or, if to touch such chord be thine, Restore the ancient tragic line, And emulate the notes that rung From the wild harp which silent hung, Till twice an hundred years rolled o'er; With fearless hand and heart on flame! From the pale willow snatched the treasure, And swept it with a kindred measure, Till Avon's swans, while rung the grove With Montfort's hate and Basil's love, Awakening at the inspired strain, Deemed their own Shakespeare lived again." Thy friendship thus thy judgment wronging, With praises not to me belonging, In task more meet for mightiest powers, Would'st thou engage my thriftless hours. Soon as the infant wakes on earth, And rather part of us than ours; He seeks not eager to inhale The freshness of the mountain gale, Content to rear his whitened wall Beside the dank and dull canal? He'll say, from youth he loved to see Whose sluggish herds before him wind, His northern clime and kindred speak; At ease in these gay plains to dwell, Where hedge-rows spread a verdant screen, And spires and forests intervene, And the neat cottage peeps between ? His dark Lochaber's boundless range, Nor for fair Devon's meads forsake Bennevis grey and Garry's lake. Thus, while I ape the measure wild And feelings, roused in life's first day, Then rise those crags, that mountain tower, Which charmed my fancy's wakening hour, Though no broad river swept along, To claim, perchance, heroic song; Though sighed no groves in summer gale, To prompt of love a softer tale; Though scarce a puny streamlet's speed Claimed homage from a shepherd's reed; Yet was poetic impulse given, By the green hill and clear blue heaven. It was a barren scene, and wild, Where naked cliffs were rudely piled; But ever and anon between Lay velvet tufts of loveliest green; And honey-suckle loved to crawl Up the low crag and ruined wall I deemed such nooks the sweetest shade And still I thought that shattered tower The mightiest work of human power; And marvelled, as the aged hind With some strange tale bewitched my mind, Of forayers, who, with headlong force, Down from that strength had spurred their horse, Their southern rapine to renew, Far in the distant Cheviots blue, And, home returning, filled the hall With revel, wassell-route, and brawl. |