There often wanders one, whom better days Saw better clad, in cloak of satin trimmed 535 With lace, and hat with splendid riband bound. A serving-maid was she, and fell in love With one who left her, went to sea, and died. Her fancy followed him through foaming waves To distant shores, and she would sit and weep At what a sailor suffers; fancy too, Delusive most where warmest wishes are, Would oft anticipate his glad return, And dream of transports she was not to know. She heard the doleful tidings of his death, 545 And never smiled again. And now she roams The dreary waste; there spends the livelong day,

And there, unless when charity forbids,

541

Great skill have they in palmistry, and more To conjure clean away the gold they touch, Conveying worthless dross into its place; 572 Loud when they beg, dumb only when they steal.

Strange! that a creature rational, and cast In human mould, should brutalize by choice His nature, and, though capable of arts 576 By which the world might profit and himself, Self banished from society, prefer

Such squalid sloth to honourable toil!
Yet even these, though, feigning sickness oft,
They swathe the forehead, drag the limping
limb,
581

And vex their flesh with artificial sores,
Can change their whine into a mirthful note
When safe occasion offers; and with dance,
And music of the bladder and the bag, 585
Beguile their woes, and make the woods re-
sound.

Such health and gaiety of heart enjoy
The houseless rovers of the sylvan world;
And breathing wholesome air, and wandering
much,

Need other physic none to heal the effects 590
Of loathsome diet, penury, and cold.

My soul is sick with every day's report
Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled.
There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart,
It does not feel for man; the natural bond
Of brotherhood is severed as the flax
That falls asunder at the touch of fire.
He finds his fellow guilty of a skin
Not coloured like his own, and, having power
To enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey. 15
Lands intersected by a narrow frith
Abhor each other. Mountains interposed
Make enemies of nations who had else
Like kindred drops been mingled into one.
Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys;
And worse than all, and most to be deplored,
As human nature's broadest, foulest blot, 22

1 bagpipe 2 Cf. Jeremiah, ix: 2

Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat

With stripes that Mercy, with a bleeding heart,

Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast. 25 Then what is man? And what man seeing this,

30

And having human feelings, does not blush
And hang his head, to think himself a man?
I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earned.
No: dear as freedom is, and in my heart's
Just estimation,prized above all price,
I had much rather be myself the slave
And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him.
We have no slaves at home. Then why
abroad?

35

15

Provokes me to a smile. With eye askance I view the muscular proportioned limb Transformed to a lean shank. The shapeless pair,

21

As they designed to mock me, at my side
Take step for step; and as I near approach
The cottage, walk along the plastered wall,
Preposterous sight! the legs without the man.
The verdure of the plain lies buried deep
Beneath the dazzling deluge; and the bents1
And coarser grass, upspearing o'er the rest,
Of late unsightly and unseen, now shine
Conspicuous, and in bright apparel clad, 25
And fledged with icy feathers, nod superb.
The cattle mourn in corners where the fence
Screens them, and seem half-petrified to sleep
In unrecumbent sadness. There they wait
Their wonted fodder, not like hungering man,
Fretful if unsupplied, but silent, meek, 31
And patient of the slow-paced swain's delay.
He from the stack carves out the accustomed
load,

Deep-plunging, and again deep-plunging oft,
His broad keen knife into the solid mass; 35
Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands,
With such undeviating and even force
He severs it away: no needless care
Lest storms should overset the leaning pile
Deciduous, or its own unbalanced weight. 40
Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcerned
The cheerful haunts of man, to wield the axe
And drive the wedge in yonder forest drear,
From morn to eve his solitary task.
Shaggy, and lean, and shrewd, with pointed

PICTURE

Oh that those lips had language! Life has passed

With me but roughly since I heard thee last. Those lips are thine thy own sweet smile I

see,

The same that oft in childhood solaced me;
Voice only fails, else how distinct they say,
"Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears
away!"

The meek intelligence of those dear eyes
(Bless'd be the art that can immortalise,
The art that baffles Time's tyrannic claim
To quench it) here shines on me still the same.
Faithful remembrancer of one so dear,

O welcome guest, though unexpected here!
Who bidst me honour with an artless song,
Affectionate, a mother lost so long,1

I will obey, not willingly alone,

But gladly, as the precept were her own: And, while that face renews my filial grief, Fancy shall weave a charm for my relief, Shall steep me in Elysian reverie,

II

Brave Kempenfelt 1 is gone;

It was not in the battle;
No tempest gave the shock;
She sprang no fatal leak;

She ran upon no rock.

1 rear-admiral of the fleet

15

20

A momentary dream that thou art she.
My mother! when I learnt that thou wast

20

dead 2

40

Oft gave me promise of thy quick return.
What ardently I wished I long believed,
And, disappointed still, was still deceived.
By expectation every day beguiled,
Dupe of to-morrow even from a child.
Thus many a sad to-morrow came and went,
Till, all my stock of infant sorrow spent,
I learned at last submission to my lot;
But, though I less deplored thee, ne'er forgot.
Where once we dwelt our name is heard no
more,

Children not thine have trod my nursery floor;
And where the gardener Robin, day by day,
Drew me to school along the public way,
Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapped
In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet capped,
'Tis now become a history little known,
That once we called the pastoral house1 our

own.

52

Short-lived possession! but the record fair
That memory keeps, of all thy kindness there,
Still outlives many a storm that has effaced
A thousand other themes less deeply traced.
Thy nightly visits to my chamber made,
That thou mightst know me safe and warmly
laid;

Thy morning bounties ere I left my home, 60
The biscuit, or confectionary plum;

The fragrant waters on my cheeks bestowed By thy own hand, till fresh they shone and glowed;

All this, and more endearing still than all,
Thy constant flow of love, that knew no fall,
Ne'er roughened by those cataracts and brakes
That humour interposed too often makes;
All this still legible in memory's page,
And still to be so to my latest age,
Adds joy to duty, makes me glad to pay
Such honours to thee as my numbers may;

1 the rectory

70

Perhaps a frail memorial, but sincere, Not scorned in heaven, though little noticed here.

Could Time, his flight reversed, restore the hours,

When, playing with thy vesture's tissued flowers,

The violet, the pink, and jassamine, I pricked them into paper with a pin (And thou wast happier than myself the while, Wouldst softly speak, and stroke my head and smile),

Could those few pleasant days again appear, Might one wish bring them, would I wish them here? 81

I would not trust my heart - the dear delight
Seems so to be desired, perhaps I might.
But no
- what here we call our life is such,
So little to be loved, and thou so much,
That I should ill requite thee to constrain
Thy unbound spirit into bonds again.

Thou, as a gallant bark from Albion's coast (The storms all weathered and the ocean crossed)

Shoots into port at some well-havened isle, 90 Where spices breathe, and brighter seasons smile,

There sits quiescent on the floods that show Her beauteous form reflected clear below, While airs impregnated with incense play Around her, fanning light her streamers gay; So thou, with sails how swift! hast reached the shore,

"Where tempests never beat nor billows roar." And thy loved consort on the dangerous tide Of life long since has anchored by thy side. But me, scarce hoping to attain that rest, 100 Always from port withheld, always distressed

Me howling blasts drive devious, tempest tost, Sails ripped, seams opening wide, and compass lost,

And day by day some current's thwarting force

Sets me more distant from a prosperous course. Yet, oh, the thought that thou art safe, and he!

That thought is joy, arrive what may to me. My boast is not, that I deduce my birth From loins enthroned and rulers of the earth; But higher far my proud pretensions rise The son of parents passed into the skies! III And now, farewell - Time unrevoked has run His wonted course, yet what I wished is done.

Whence is the stream of years? Whither do they roll along? Where have they hid, in mist, their many coloured sides?

I look unto the times of old, but they seem dim to Ossian's eyes, like reflected moonbeams on a distant lake. Here rise the red beams of war! There, silent, dwells a feeble race! They mark no years with their deeds, as slow they pass along. Dweller between the shields thou that awakest the failing soul! descend from thy wall, harp of Cona, with thy voices three! Come with that which kindles the past rear the forms of old, on their own dark-brown years!

U-thorno, hill of storms, I behold my race on thy side. Fingal is bending in night over Duth-maruno's tomb. Near him are the steps of his heroes, hunters of the boar. By Turthor's stream the host of Lochlin is deep in shades. The wrathful kings stood on two hills: they looked forward from their bossy shields. They looked forward to the stars of night, red wandering in the west. Cruthloda bends from high, like a formless meteor in clouds. He sends abroad the winds, and marks them with his signs. Starno foresaw that Morven's king was not to yield in war. He twice struck the tree in wrath. He rushed before his son. He hummed a surly song, and heard his hair in wind. Turned

3

6

1 the Battle of Loda 2 the home of Ossian

4 Norway Starno, king of Lochlin, or Norway, and Swaran, his son and heir 5 Odin, chief god of the Norsemen 6 Fingal (of Scotland)

from one another, they stood, like two oaks, which different winds had bent; each hangs over his own loud rill, and shakes his boughs in the course of blasts.

"Annir," said Starno of lakes, "was a fire that consumed of old. He poured death from his eyes along the striving fields. His joy was in the fall of men. Blood to him was a summer stream, that brings joy to the withered vales, from its own mossy rock. He came forth to the lake Luth-cormo, to meet the tall Corman-trunar, he from Urlor of streams, dweller of battle's wing.

"The chief of Urlor had come to Gormal with his dark-bosomed ships. He saw the daughter of Annir, white-armed Foina-bragal. He saw her! Nor careless rolled her eyes on the rider of stormy waves. She fled to his ship in darkness, like a moonbeam through a nightly veil. Annir pursued along the deep; he called the winds of heaven. Nor alone was the king! Starno was by his side. Like U-thorno's young eagle, I turned my eyes on my father.

66

We rushed into roaring 2 Urlor. With his people came tall Corman-trunar. We fought; but the foe prevailed. In his wrath my father stood. He lopped the young trees with his sword. His eyes rolled red in his rage. I marked the soul of the king, and I retired in night. From the field I took a broken helmet; a shield that was pierced with steel; pointless was the spear in my hand. I went to find the foe.

"On a rock sat tall Corman-trunar beside his burning oak; and near him beneath a tree, sat deep-bosomed Foina-bragal. I threw my broken shield before her. I spoke the words of peace. 'Beside his rolling sea lies Annir of many lakes. The king was pierced in battle; and Starno is to raise his tomb. Me, a son of Loda, he sends to white-handed Foina, to bid her send a lock from her hair, to rest with her father in earth. And thou, king of roaring Urlor, let the battle cease, till Annir receive the shell from fiery-eyed Cruth-loda.'

"Bursting into tears, she rose, and tore a lock from her hair; a lock, which wandered in the blast, along her heaving breast. Cormantrunar gave the shell, and bade me rejoice

1 father of Starno 2 because of its many streams This was untrue. He was disguised. 5 Shells were used as drinking-cups. i.e., in Valhalla, the heaven of heroes 7 offered drink