ON ETTRICK FOREST'S MOUNTAINS DUN.* ON Ettrick Forest's mountains dun, 'Tis blythe to hear the sportsman's gun, Far through the noon-day solitude; And springs, where grey-hair'd shepherds tell, 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, 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, * 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, Whose eyes, as oft as they perform'd their round, Whose ears receiv'd the same unvaried phrase, All have their tastes-this may the fancy strike |