A GREAT number of poems have been written on the death of BURNS, some of them of considerable poetical merit. To have subjoined all of them to the present edition, would have been to have enlarged it to another volume at least; and to have made a selection, would have been a task of considerable delicacy.
The Editor, therefore, presents one poem only on this melancholy subject; a poem which has not before appeared in print. It is from the pen of one who has sympathized deeply in the fate of Burns, and will not be found unworthy of its author-the Biographer of Lorenzo de' Medici. Of a person so well known, it is wholly unnecessary for the Editor to speak; and, if it were necessary, it would not be easy for him to find language that would adequately express his respect and his affection.
REAR high thy bleak majestic hills,
Thy sheltered valleys proudly spread,
And, SCOTIA, pour thy thousand rills,
And wave thy heaths with blossoms red.
But ah! what poet now shall tread
Thy airy heights, thy woodland reign,
Since he, the sweetest bard, is dead,
That ever breath'd the soothing strain!
As green thy towering pines may grow,
As clear thy streams may speed along,
As bright thy summer suns may glow,
As gaily charm thy feathery throng;
But now, unheeded is the song,
And dull and lifeless all around,
For his wild harp lies all unstrung,
And cold the hand that waked its sound.
What tho' thy vigorous offspring rise
In arts, in arms, thy sons excel;
Tho' beauty in thy daughters' eyes,
And health in every feature dwell;
Yet who shall now their praises tell,
In strains impassion'd, fond, and free,
Since he no more the song shall swell
To love, and liberty, and thee.
With step-dame eye and frown severe
His hapless youth why didst thou view?
For all thy joys to him were dear,
And all his vows to thee were due;
Nor greater bless his bosom knew,
In opening youth's delightful prime,
Than when thy favouring ear he drew
To listen to his chanted rhyme.
Thy lonely wastes and frowning skies
To him were all with rapture fraught
He heard with joy the tempest rise
That waked him to sublimer thought;
And oft thy winding dells he sought, [fume,
Where wild flow'rs pour'd their rathe per-
And with sincere devotion brought
To thee the summer's earliest bloom.
But ah! no fond maternal smile
His unprotected youth enjoy'd,
His limbs inur'd to early toil,
His days with early hardships tried ;
And more to mark the gloomy void,
And bid him feel his misery,
Before his infant eyes would glide
Day-dreams of immortality.
Yet, not by cold neglect depress'd,
With sinewy arm he turn'd the soil,
Sunk with the evening sun to rest,
And met at morn his earliest smile.
Waked by his rustic pipe, meanwhile
The powers of fancy came along,
And sooth'd his lengthened hours of toil,
With native wit and sprightly song.
A GREAT number of poems have been written on the death of BURNS, some of them of considerable poetical merit. To have subjoined all of them to the present edition, would have been to have enlarged it to another volume at least; and to have made a selection, would have been a task of considerable delicacy.
The Editor, therefore, presents one poem only on this melancholy subject; a poem which has not before appeared in print. It is from the pen of one who has sympathized deeply in the fate of Burns, and will not be found unworthy of its author-the Biographer of Lorenzo de' Medici. Of a person so well known, it is wholly unnecessary for the Editor to speak; and, if it were necessary, it would not be easy for him to find language that would adequately express his respect and his affection.
REAR high thy bleak majestic hills,
Thy sheltered valleys proudly spread,
And, SCOTIA, pour thy thousand rills,
And wave thy heaths with blossoms red.
But ah! what poet now shall tread
Thy airy heights, thy woodland reign,
Since he, the sweetest bard, is dead,
That ever breath'd the soothing strain!
As green thy towering pines may grow,
As clear thy streams may speed along,
As bright thy summer suns may glow,
As gaily charm thy feathery throng;
But now, unheeded is the song,
And dull and lifeless all around,
For his wild harp lies all unstrung,
And cold the hand that waked its sound.
What tho' thy vigorous offspring rise
In arts, in arms, thy sons excel;
Tho' beauty in thy daughters' eyes,
And health in every feature dwell;
Yet who shall now their praises tell,
In strains impassion'd, fond, and free,
Since he no more the song shall swell
To love, and liberty, and thee.
With step-dame eye and frown severe
His hapless youth why didst thou view?
For all thy joys to him were dear,
And all his vows to thee were due;
Nor greater bless his bosom knew,
In opening youth's delightful prime,
Than when thy favouring ear he drew
To listen to his chanted rhyme.
Thy lonely wastes and frowning skies
To him were all with rapture fraught
He heard with joy the tempest rise
That waked him to sublimer thought;
And oft thy winding dells he sought, fume.
Where wild flow'rs pour'd their rathe per-
And with sincere devotion brought
To thee the summer's earliest bloom.
But ah! no fond maternal smile
His unprotected youth enjoy'd,
His limbs inur'd to early toil,
His days with early hardships tried;
And more to mark the gloomy void,
And bid him feel his misery,
Before his infant eyes would glide
Day-dreams of immortality.
Yet, not by cold neglect depress'd,
With sinewy arm he turn'd the soil,
Sunk with the evening sun to rest,
And met at morn his earliest smile.
Waked by his rustic pipe, meanwhile
The powers of fancy came along,
And sooth'd his lengthened hours of toil,
With native wit and sprightly song.
-Ah! days of bliss, too swiftly fled,
When vigorous health from labour springs
And bland contentment smooths the bed,
And sleep his ready opiate brings;
And hovering round on airy wings
Float the light forms of young desire,
That of unutterable things
The soft and shadowy hope inspire.
Now spells of mightier power prepare,
Bid brighter phantoms round him dance;
Let Flattery spread her viewless snare,
And Fame attract his vagrant glance;
Let sprightly Pleasure too advance,
Unveil'd her eyes, unclasp'd her zone, Till, lost in love's delirious trance,
He scorns the joys his youth has known.
Let Friendship pour her brightest blaze,
Expanding all the bloom of soul;
And Mirth concentre all her rays,
And point them from the sparkling bowl; And let the careless moments roll
In social pleasure unconfined,
And confidence that spurns control
Unlock the inmost springs of mind:
And lead his steps those bowers among,
Where elegance with splendour vies,
Or Science bids her favour'd throng,
To more refined sensations rise:
Beyond the peasant's humbler joys,
And freed from each laborious strife
There let him learn the bliss to prize
That waits the sons of polish'd life.
Then whilst his throbbing veins beat high
With every impulse of delight,
Dash from his lips the cup of joy,
And shroud the scene in shades of night;
And let Despair, with wizard light,
Disclose the yawning gulf below,
And pour incessant on his sight
Her spectred ills and shapes of woe:
And show beneath a cheerless shed,
With sorrowing heart and streaming eyes,
In silent grief where droops her head,
The partner of his early joys;
And let his infants' tender cries
His fond parental succour claim,
And bid him hear in agonies
A husband's and a father's name.
"Tis done, the powerful charm succeeds;
His high reluctant spirit bends;
In bitterness of soul he bleeds,
Nor longer with his fate contends.
An idiot laugh the welkin rends
As genius thus degraded lies;
Till pitying Heaven the veil extends
That shrouds the Poet's ardent eyes.
-Rear high thy bleak majestic hills,
Thy sheltered valleys proudly spread,
And SCOTIA, pour thy thousand rills,
And wave thy heaths with blossoms red; But never more shall poet tread
Thy airy height, thy woodland reign, Since he, the sweetest bard, is dead,
That ever breath'd the soothing strain.
|