I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft In life's morning march, when my bosom was young; I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft, And knew the sweet strain that the cornreapers sung. Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore From my home and my weeping friends never to part: My little ones kiss'd me a thousand times o'er, And my wife sobb'd aloud in her fullness of heart. Stay, stay with us,-rest, thou art weary and worn; And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay. But sorrow return'd with the dawning of morn, And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away. LINES WRITTEN ON VISITING A SCENE IN ARGYLESHIRE. AT the silence of twilight's contemplative hour, I have mused in a sorrowful mood, On the wind-shaken weeds that embosom the bower, Where the home of my forefathers stood. All ruin'd and wild is their roofless abode, And lonely the dark raven's sheltering tree: And travell'd by few is the grass-cover'd road, Where the hunter of deer and the warrior trode To his hills that encircle the sea. Yet wandering, I found on my ruinous walk, One rose of the wilderness left on its stalk, Like a brotherless hermit, the last of its race, brace; For the night-weed and thorn overshadow'd the place Where the flower of my forefathers grew. Sweet bud of the wilderness! emblem of all Though the wilds of enchantment, all vernal and bright, In the days of delusion by fancy combined With the vanishing phantoms of love and de light, Abandon'd my soul, like a dream of the night, And leave but a desert behind. Be hush'd, my dark spirit! for wisdom condemns When the faint and the feeble deplore; Be strong as the rock of the ocean, that stems A thousand wild waves on the shore! Through the perils of chance and the scowl of disdain, May thy front be unalter'd, thy courage elate! Yea! even the name I have worshipp'd in vain Shall awake not the sigh of remembrance again: To bear is to conquer our fate. TO THE RAINBOW. TRIUMPHAL arch, that fill'st the sky, I ask not proud Philosophy To teach me what thou art Still seem, as to my childhood's sight, Betwixt the earth and heaven. Can all that Optics teach, unfold When Science from Creation's face And yet, fair bow, no fabling dreams, Have told why first thy robe of beams When o'er the green undeluged earth How came the world's grey fathers forth To watch thy sacred sign! And when its yellow lustre smiled O'er mountains yet untrod, Each mother held aloft her child To bless the bow of God. Methinks, thy jubilee to keep, Nor ever shall the Muse's eye The earth to thee her incense yields, How glorious is thy girdle cast As fresh in yon horizon dark, For, faithful to its sacred page, Nor lets the type grow pale with age THE LAST MAN. ALL worldly shapes shall melt in gloom, Its immortality! I saw a vision in my sleep, That gave my spirit strength to sweep I saw the last of human mould, The Sun's eye had a sickly glare, Some had expired in fight,-the brands In plague and famine some! Yet, prophet-like, that lone one stood, That shook the sere leaves from the wood |