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THE HIGHLAND BROACH.

For maid and mother, when despair

Might else have triumphed, baffling prayer,
One small possession lacked not power,
Provided in a calmer hour,

To meet such need as might befal-
Roof, raiment, bread, or burial:
For women, even of tears bereft,

The hidden silver Broach was left.

As generations come and go

Their arts, their customs, ebb and flow;
Fate, fortune, sweep strong powers away,
And feeble, of themselves, decay;
What poor abodes the heir-loom hide,
In which the castle once took pride!
Tokens, once kept as boasted wealth,
If saved at all, are saved by stealth.
Lo ships, from seas by nature barred,
Mount along ways by man prepared;
And in far-stretching vales, whose streams
Seek other seas, their canvas gleams.

Lo busy towns spring up, on coasts
Thronged yesterday by airy ghosts;
Soon, like a lingering star forlorn
Among the novelties of morn,
While young delights on old encroach,
Will vanish the last Highland Broach.

But when, from out their viewless bed,
Like vapours, years have rolled and spread,
And this poor verse, and worthier lays,
Shall yield no light of love or praise;

301

302

DEVOTIONAL INCITEMENTS.

Then, by the spade, or cleaving plough,
Or torrent from the mountain's brow,
Or whirlwind, reckless what his might
Entombs, or forces into light;
Blind Chance, a volunteer ally,
That oft befriends Antiquity,

And clears Oblivion from reproach,

May render back the Highland Broach.*

1832.

The Poems written in 1832 were few. They include Devotional Incitements, an Evening Voluntary, Rural Illusions, and three Sonnets.

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WHERE will they stop, those breathing Powers,

The Spirits of the new-born flowers?

They wander with the breeze, they wind
Where'er the streams a passage find;
Up from their native ground they rise
In mute aërial harmonies;

From humble violet-modest thyme-
Exhaled, the essential odours climb,

* How much the Broach is sometimes, prized by persons in humble stations may be gathered from an occurrence mentioned to me by a female friend. She had had an opportunity of benefiting a poor old woman in her own hut, who, wishing to make a return, said to her daughter, in Erse, in a tone of plaintive earnestness, "I would give anything I have, but I hope she does not wish for my Broach!" and, uttering these words, she put her hand upon the Broach which fastened her kerchief, and which, she imagined, had attracted the eye of her benefactress.-W. W., 1835.

DEVOTIONAL INCITEMENTS.

.303

As if no space below the sky

Their subtle flight could satisfy:

Heaven will not tax our thoughts with pride
If like ambition be their guide.

Roused by this kindliest of May-showers,
The spirit-quickener of the flowers,
That with moist virtue softly cleaves
The buds, and freshens the young leaves,
The birds pour forth their souls in notes
Of rapture from a thousand throats-
Here checked by too impetuous haste,
While there the music runs to waste,
With bounty more and more enlarged,
Till the whole air is overcharged;
Give ear, O Man! to their appeal
And thirst for no inferior zeal,
Thou, who canst think, as well as feel.

Mount from the earth; aspire! aspire!
So pleads the town's cathedral quire,
In strains that from their solemn height
Sink, to attain a loftier flight;
While incense from the altar breathes
Rich fragrance in embodied wreaths;
Or, flung from swinging censer, shrouds
The taper-lights, and curls in clouds.
Around angelic Forms, the still
Creation of the painter's skill,
That on the service wait concealed
One moment, and the next revealed.
-Cast off your bonds, awake, arise,
And for no transient ecstasies!

304

1836.

DEVOTIONAL INCITEMENTS.

What else can mean the visual plea
Of still or moving imagery-
The iterated summons loud,

Not wasted on the attendant crowd,
Nor wholly lost upon the throng
Hurrying the busy streets along?

Alas! the sanctities combined
By art to unsensualise the mind
Decay and languish; or, as creeds

And humours change, are spurned like weeds:

The priests are from their altars thrust;
Temples are levelled with the dust;

And solemn rites and awful forms

Founder amid fanatic storms.1

Yet evermore, through years renewed
In undisturbed vicissitude

Of seasons balancing their flight

On the swift wings of day and night,
Kind Nature keeps a heavenly door
Wide open for the scattered Poor.

Where flower-breathed incense to the skies

Is wafted in mute harmonies;

And ground fresh-cloven by the plough

Is fragrant with a humbler vow ;
Where birds and brooks from leafy dells
Chime forth unwearied canticles,

And vapours magnify and spread

The glory of the sun's bright head—

The solemn rites, the awful forms,
Founder amid fanatic storms;

The priests are from their altars thrust,
The temples levelled with the dust:

1835.

CALM IS THE FRAGRANT AIR, AND LOTH TO LOSE. 305

Still constant in her worship, still
Conforming to the eternal Will,1
Whether men sow or reap the fields,
Divine monition 2 Nature yields,
That not by bread alone we live,
Or what a hand of flesh can give;
That every day should leave some part
Free for a sabbath of the heart:

So shall the seventh be truly blest,
From morn to eve, with hallowed rest.

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CALM is the fragrant air, and loth to lose

Day's grateful warmth, tho' moist with falling dews.
Look for the stars, you'll say that there are none;
Look up a second time, and, one by one,
You mark them twinkling out with silvery light,
And wonder how they could elude the sight!
The birds, of late so noisy in their bowers,
Warbled a while with faint and fainter powers,
But now are silent as the dim-seen flowers:
Nor does the village Church-clock's iron tone
The time's and season's influence disown:
Nine beats distinctly to each other bound
In drowsy sequence-how unlike the sound.
That, in rough winter, oft inflicts a fear

On fireside listeners, doubting what they hear !

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