WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF MACPHERSON'S

Composed 1824.

OSSIAN.

Published 1827.

OFT have I caught, upon a fitful breeze,
Fragments of far-off melodies,

With ear not coveting the whole,

A part so charmed the pensive soul:
While a dark storm before my sight
Was yielding, on a mountain height
Loose vapours have I watched, that won
Prismatic colours from the sun;

Nor felt a wish that heaven would show
The image of its perfect bow.

What need, then, of these finished Strains?

Away with counterfeit Remains!

An abbey in its lone recess,

A temple of the wilderness,

Wrecks though they be, announce with feeling

The majesty of honest dealing.

Spirit of Ossian! if imbound

In language thou may'st yet be found,

If aught (intrusted to the pen

Or floating on the tongues of men,
Albeit shattered and impaired)
Subsist thy dignity to guard,

In concert with memorial claim

Of old grey stone, and high-born name

That cleaves to rock or pillared cave

Where moans the blast, or beats the wave,

Let Truth, stern arbitress of all,

Interpret that Original,

And for presumptuous wrongs atone ;-
Authentic words be given, or none !

Time is not blind;-yet He, who spares
Pyramid pointing to the stars,

Hath preyed with ruthless appetite
On all that marked the primal flight
Of the poetic ecstasy

Into the land of mystery.

No tongue is able to rehearse
One measure, Orpheus! of thy verse;
Musæus, stationed with his lyre
Supreme among the Elysian quire,
Is, for the dwellers upon earth,
Mute as a lark ere morning's birth.
Why grieve for these, though past away
The music, and extinct the lay?
When thousands, by severer doom,
Full early to the silent tomb

Have sunk, at Nature's call; or strayed
From hope and promise, self-betrayed ; (73)
The garland withering on their brows;
Stung with remorse for broken vows;
Frantic―else how might they rejoice?
And friendless, by their own sad choice!

Hail, Bards of mightier grasp! on you
I chiefly call, the chosen Few,
Who cast not off the acknowledged guide,
Who faltered not, nor turned aside;
Whose lofty genius could survive
Privation, under sorrow thrive;
In whom the fiery Muse revered
The symbol of a snow-white beard,
Bedewed with meditative tears

Dropped from the lenient cloud of years.

Brothers in soul! though distant times
Produced you nursed in various climes,
Ye, when the orb of life had waned,
A plenitude of love retained:
Hence, while in you each sad regret
By corresponding hope was met,

Ye lingered among human kind,
Sweet voices for the passing wind;
Departing sunbeams, loth to stop,
Though smiling on the last hill top !
Such to the tender-hearted maid
Even ere her joys begin to fade;
Such, haply, to the rugged chief
By fortune crushed, or tamed by grief;
Appears, on Morven's lonely shore,
Dim-gleaming through imperfect lore,
The Son of Fingal; such was blind
Mæonides of ampler mind;
Such Milton, to the fountain head
Of glory by Urania led!

Composed 1825.

1825.

TO A SKY-LARK. (74)

ETHEREAL minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!

Published 1827.

Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?
Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye
Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?
Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will,
Those quivering wings composed, that music still!

Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;
A privacy of glorious light is thine;

Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood
Of harmony, with instinct more divine ;
Type of the wise who soar, but never roam;

True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!

1826.

"ERE WITH COLD BEADS OF MIDNIGHT DEW."

Composed 1826.

Published 1827.

ERE with cold beads of midnight dew

Had mingled tears of thine,

I grieved, fond Youth! that thou shouldst sue
To haughty Geraldine.

Immoveable by generous sighs,

She glories in a train

Who drag, beneath our native skies,

An oriental chain.

Pine not like them with arms across,
Forgetting in thy care

How the fast-rooted trees can toss
Their branches in mid air.

The humblest rivulet will take

Its own wild liberties;

And, every day, the imprisoned lake

Is flowing in the breeze.

Then, crouch no more on suppliant knee,
But scorn with scorn outbrave;

A Briton, even in love, should be
A subject, not a slave!

Composed 1826-34

TO MAY.

Published 1835.

THOUGH many suns have risen and set
Since thou, blithe May, wert born,
And Bards, who hailed thee, may forget
Thy gifts, thy beauty scorn;

There are who to a birthday strain
Confine not harp and voice,
But evermore throughout thy reign
Are grateful and rejoice!

Delicious odours! music sweet,
Too sweet to pass away!
Oh for a deathless song to meet
The soul's desire-a lay

That, when a thousand years are told,
Should praise thee, genial Power!
Through summer heat, autumnal cold,
And winter's dreariest hour.

Earth, Sea, thy presence feel-nor less
If yon ethereal blue

With its soft smile the truth express,
The Heavens have felt it too.
The inmost heart of man if glad

Partakes a livelier cheer;
And eyes that cannot but be sad
Let fall a brightened tear.

Since thy return, through days and weeks

Of hope that grew by stealth, How many wan and faded cheeks

Have kindled into health!

The Old, by thee revived, have said,
"Another year is ours ;"

And wayworn Wanderers, poorly fed,
Have smiled upon thy flowers.

Who tripping lisps a merry song
Amid his playful peers?

The tender Infant who was long

A prisoner of fond fears;

But now, when every sharp-edged blast

Is quiet in its sheath,

His Mother leaves him free to taste

Earth's sweetness in thy breath.