Written with a Pencil over the Chimney-Piece in the Parlour of the Inn at Kenmore, Taymouth.
ADMIRING Nature in her wildest grace,
These northern scenes with weary feet I trace;
O'er many a winding dale and painful steep,
Th' abodes of covey'd grouse and timid sheep,
My savage journey, curious, I pursue,
Till famed Breadalbane opens to my view.-
The meeting cliffs each deep-sunk glen divides,
The woods, wild-scatter'd, clothe their ample sides;
Th' outstretching lake, embosom'd 'mong the hills,
The eye with wonder and amazement fills;
The Tay meandering sweet in infant pride,
The palace rising on his verdant side;
The lawns wood-fringed in Nature's native taste ;
The hillocks dropp'd in Nature's careless haste;
The arches striding o'er the new-born stream;
The village, glittering in the noontide beam-
Poetic ardours in my bosom swell,
Lone wandering by the hermit's mossy cell;
The sweeping theatre of hanging woods;
Th' incessant roar of headlong tumbling floods.-
Here Poesy might wake her heaven-taught lyre,
And look through nature with creative fire;
Here, to the wrongs of fate half-reconciled,
Misfortune's lighten'd steps might wander wild;
And Disappointment, in these lonely bounds,
Find balm to soothe her bitter rankling wounds:
Here heart-struck Grief might heavenward stretch
her scan,
And injured Worth forget and pardon man.
TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY,
ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH, IN APRIL, 1786.
WEE, modest, crimson-tipped flower,
Thou's met me in an evil hour;
For I maun crush amang the stoure
To spare thee now is past my power,
Thou bonnie gem.
Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet,
The bonnie lark, companion meet!
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet,
Wi' spreckled breast,
When upward-springing, blithe, to greet,
The purpling east.
Cauld blew the bitter-biting north Upon thy early, humble birth;
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
Amid the storm,
Scarce rear'd above the parent earth
Thy tender form.
The flaunting flowers our gardens yield, High sheltering woods and wa's maun shield; But thou, beneath the random bield
O' clod or stane,
Adorns the histie stibble-field,
There, in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snawie bosom sunward spread,
Thou lifts thy unassuming head
In humble guise;
But now the share uptears thy bed,
And low thou lies!
Such is the fate of artless maid, Sweet floweret of the rural shade! By love's simplicity betray'd,
And guileless trust,
Till she, like thee, all soil'd, is laid
Low i' the dust.
Such is the fate of simple bard,
On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd!
Unskilful he to note the card
Till billows rage, and gales blow hard,
And whelm him o'er.
Such fate to suffering worth is given, Who long with wants and woes has striven, By human pride or cunning driven
Till, wrench'd of every stay but Heaven,
He, ruin'd, sink!
E'en thou who mourn'st the daisy's fate,
That fate is thine-no distant date;
Stern Ruin's plough-share drives, elate,
Full on thy bloom,
Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight,
OCCASIONED BY THE UNFORTUNATE ISSUE OF A FRIEND'S AMOUR.
Alas! how oft does Goodness wound itself,
And sweet Affection prove the spring of woe!
O THOU pale orb, that silent shines,
While care-untroubled mortals sleep!
Thou seest a wretch that inly pines,
And wanders here to wail and weep!
With woe I nightly vigils keep,
Beneath thy wan unwarming beam; And mourn, in lamentation deep, How life and love are all a dream.
I joyless view thy rays adorn
The faintly-marked distant hill :
I joyless view thy trembling horn
Reflected in the gurgling rill:
My fondly-fluttering heart, be still!
Thou busy power, Remembrance, cease!
Ah! must the agonizing thrill
For ever bar returning peace?
No idly-feign'd poetic pains
My sad, love-lorn lamentings claim;
No shepherd's pipe-Arcadian strains;
No fabled tortures, quaint and tame :
The plighted faith; the mutual flame;
The oft-attested Powers above;
The promised father's tender name;
These were the pledges of my love!
Encircled in her clasping arms,
How have the raptured moments flown! How have I wish'd for fortune's charms,
For her dear sake, and her's alone! And must I think it? is she gone,
My secret heart's exulting boast?
And does she heedless hear my groan?
And is she ever, ever lost?
O! can she bear so base a heart,
So lost to honour, lost to truth,
As from the fondest lover part,
The plighted husband of her youth?
Alas! life's path may be unsmooth!
Her way may lie through rough distress! Then, who her pangs and pains will soothe; Her sorrows share, and make them less?
Ye winged hours that o'er us pass'd,
Enraptured more, the more enjoy'd,
Your dear remembrance in my breast
My fondly-treasured thoughts employ'd.
That breast, how dreary now, and void,
For her too scanty once of room!
E'en every ray of hope destroy'd,
And not a wish to gild the gloom!
The morn that warns th' approaching day
Awakes me up to toil and woe :
I see the hours in long array
That I must suffer, lingering, slow.
Full many a pang, and many a throe,
Keen Recollection's direful train,
Must wring my soul, ere Phoebus, low,
Shall kiss the distant western main.
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