ON ETTRICK FOREST'S MOUNTAINS

DUN.*

ON Ettrick Forest's mountains dun,

'Tis blythe to hear the sportsman's gun,
And seek the heath-frequenting brood

Far through the noon-day solitude;
By many a cairn and trenched mound,
Where chiefs of yore sleep lone and sound,

And springs, where grey-hair'd shepherds tell,
That still the fairies love to dwell.

Along the silver streams of Tweed,

'Tis blythe the mimic fly to lead,

* Written after a week's shooting and fishing, in which the poet had been engaged with some friends.

When to the hook the salmon springs,

And the line whistles through the rings; The boiling eddy see him try,

Then dashing from the current high,

Till watchful eye and cautious hand

Have led his wasted strength to land.

"Tis blythe along the midnight tide,
With stalwart arm the boat to guide;
On high the dazzling blaze to rear,
And heedful plunge the barbed spear;
Rock, wood, and scaur, emerging bright,
Fling on the stream their ruddy light,

And from the bank our band appears

Like Genii, armed with fiery spears.

"Tis blythe at eve to tell the tale, How we succeed, and how we fail,

*

Whether at ALWYN's lordly meal,

Or lowlier board of ASHESTEEL ; †

While the gay tapers cheerly shine,

Bickers the fire, and flows the wine

Days free from thought, and nights from care,
My blessing on the Forest fair!

* Alwyn, the seat of the Lord Somerville, now, alas! untenanted, by the lamented death of that kind and hospitable nobleman, the author's nearest neighbour and intimate friend.

+ Ashesteel, the poet's residence at that time.

THE

SEARCH AFTER HAPPINESS;

OR,

THE QUEST OF SULTAUN SOLIMAUN.

Written in 1817.

O, FOR a glance of that gay Muse's eye,

That lighten'd on Bandello's laughing tale,

And twinkled with a lustre shrewd and sly

When Giam Battista bade her vision hail !*

Yet fear not, ladies, the naive detail

* The hint of the following tale is taken from La Camiseia Magica, a novel of Giam Battista Casti.

Given by the natives of that land canorous;

Italian licence loves to leap the pale,

We Britons have the fear of shame before us,

And, if not wise in mirth, at least must be decorous..

II.

In the far eastern clime, no great while since,
Lived Sultaun Solimaun, a mighty prince,

Whose eyes, as oft as they perform'd their round,
Beheld all others fix'd upon the ground;

Whose ears receiv'd the same unvaried phrase,
"Sultaun! thy vassal hears, and he obeys !"-

All have their tastes-this may the fancy strike
Of such grave folks as pomp and grandeur like ;
For me, I love the honest heart and warm
Of Monarch who can amble round his farm,
Or, when the toil of state no more annoys,
In chimney corner seek domestic joys-