ODE TO THE SPRING. The Attic warbler pours her throat, Responsive to the cuckoo's note, The untaught harmony of Spring: While, whispering pleasure as they fly, Cool zephyrs through the clear blue sky Their gathered fragrance fling. Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch A broader, browner shade, Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech O'er-canopies the glade, Beside some water's rushy brink With me the Muse shall sit and think, -At ease reclined in rustic state,How vain the ardour of the crowd, How low, how little are the proud, How indigent the great! Still is the toiling hand of care; The panting herds repose: Yet hark, how through the peopled air The busy murmur grows! The insect youth are on the wing, And float amid the liquid noon : To contemplation's sober eye, In Fortune's varying colours drest : Brushed by the hand of rough mischance Or chilled by age, their airy dance They leave, in dust to rest. Methinks I hear in accents low The sportive kind reply,"Poor moralist! and what art thou? A solitary fly! Thy joys no glittering female meets, No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets, No painted plumage to display : On hasty wings thy youth is flown: Thy sun is set, thy Spring is goneWe frolic while 't is May." JOHN LOGAN. 1748-1788. HY braes were bonny, Yarrow stream! THE BRAES OF YARROW. For never on thy banks shall I Behold my love, the Flower of Yarrow. "He promised me a milk-white steed, To bear me to his father's bowers; He promised me a little page, To 'squire me to his father's towers; He promised me a wedding-ring,— The wedding-day was fixed to-morrow ;— Now he is wedded to his grave, Alas! his watry grave in Yarrow! "Sweet were his words when last we met; That I should never more behold him! Thrice did the water-wraith ascend, And gave a doleful groan through Yarrow. "His mother from the window looked, With all the longing of a mother; His little sister weeping walked The greenwood path to meet her brother: They sought him east, they sought him west, They sought him all the forest thorough; They only saw the cloud of night, They only heard the roar of Yarrow. "No longer from thy window look, Thou hast no son, thou tender mother! No longer walk, thou lovely maid! Alas thou hast no more a brother! No longer seek him east or west, And search no more the forest thorough; For, wandering in the night so dark, He fell a lifeless corse in Yarrow. "The tear shall never leave my cheek, No other youth shall be my marrow; I'll seek thy body in the stream, And then with thee I'll sleep in Yarrow." The tear did never leave her cheek, No other youth became her marrow; She found his body in the stream, And now with him she sleeps in Yarrow. EAR Cloe, while the busy crowd, Though singularity and pride Be called our choice, we'll step aside, From the gay world we'll oft retire Where love our hours employs ; If solid happiness we prize, And they are fools who roam; The world hath nothing to bestow, From our own selves our bliss must flow, And that dear hut, our home. |