ページの画像
PDF
ePub

TO THE YEW.

WRITTEN IN 1799.

WHEN fortune smil'd, and nature's charms were new,
I lov'd to see the oak majestic tower;
I lov'd to see the apple's painted flower,
Bedropt with pencill'd tints of rosy hue.
Now more I love thee, melancholy Yew,

Whose still green leaves in solemn silence wave
Above the peasant's red unhonour'd grave,

Which oft thou moistenest with the morning dew.
To thee the sad, to thee the weary fly;

They rest in peace beneath thy sacred gloom,
Thou sole companion of the lowly tomb!

No leaves but thine in pity o'er them sigh.

Lo! now, to fancy's gaze, thou seem'st to spread
Thy shadowy boughs to shroud me with the dead.

ODE,

ADDRESSED TO MR. GEO. DYER,

ON SCOTTISH SCENERY AND MANNERS.

WRITTEN IN 1799.

I.

DYER! whom late on Lothian's daisied plains,
We hail'd a pilgrim-bard, like minstrel old,
(Such as our younger eyes no more behold,
Though still remembered by the aged swains,)
Sleeps thy shrill lyre where Cam's slow waters lave
Her sedgy banks o'erhung with oziers blue ?
Or does romantic Tweed's pellucid wave

Still rise in fancy to the poet's view?

Her moors, that oft have seen the hostile throng
Of warriors mingle in encounter dire ; —

Her meads, that oft have heard the shepherd's song

Carol of youthful love's enchanting fire;

Lomond's proud mountains, where the summer snow,
In faint blue wreaths, "congeals the lap of May;" —
And Teviot's banks, where flowers of fairy blow, -
Could'st thou with cold unraptur'd eye survey,
Nor wake to bardish notes the bosom-thrilling lay?

II.

What though by Selma's blazing oak no more
The bards of Fingal wake the trembling string;
Still to the sea-breeze sad they nightly sing
The dirge forlorn on ancient Morven's shore;
And still, in every hazel-tangled dell,

The hoary swain's traditionary lay

Can point the place where Morven's heroes fell,
And where their mossy tombs are crusted gray.
The mountain rock, to shepherds only known,

Retains the stamp of Fingal's giant heel;

The rough round crag, by rocking storms o'erthrown,
The swain misdeems some ancient chariot wheel.
On those brown steeps where the shy red deer play,
And wanton roes, unscar'd by hunter, roam,
Sat Morven's maids o'er the smooth dimpling bay,
To see their barks, from Lochlin oaring home,
Rush like the plunging whale through ocean's bursting

foam.

III.

The heath, where once the venom-bristled boar
Pierc'd by the spear of mighty Dermid fell
The martial youth secur❜d by many a spell,*
Who long in fight the shaggy goat-skin wore.
Him, far in northern climes, a female bore

Where the red heath slopes gradual to the main, Where boreal billows lash the latest shore,

And murky night begins her sullen reign.
So soft the purple glow his cheek could boast,
It seem'd the spiky grass might grave a scar,
Yet, foremost still of Fingal's victor host,

He strode tremendous in the van of war.
He sunk not till the doubtful field was won,

Though life-blood steep'd his shaggy vest in gore, When, to a clime between the wind and sun, Him to his weird dame the heroes bore, Whose plastic arts did soon her valiant son restore.

IV.

The magic shores of Ketterin's silver lake,†
Where shuddering beauty struggles to beguile

* Alluding to the Gaelic legend of the Celtic Ladbrog. + Vide Scott's Glenfinlas.

The frown of horror to an awful smile,
May well thy harp's sublimest strains awake.
There the Green Sisters of the haunted heath

Have strew'd with mangled limbs their frightful den
And work with rending fangs the stranger's death,
Who treads with lonely foot dark Finlas' glen.
Lur'd from his wattled shiel on Ketterin's side,
The youthful hunter trode the pathless brake,
No pilot star, impetuous love his guide,

But ne'er return'd to Ketterin's fatal lake. Still one remains his hapless fate to tell,

The visionary chief of gifted eye,

Wild on the wind he flings each potent spell,

Which ill-starr'd mortals only hear to die

Far from his wizard notes the fell Green Sisters fly.

« 前へ次へ »