She leapt down the rocks
With her rainbow locks
Streaming among the streams;
Her steps paved with green
The downward ravine,
Which slopes to the western gleams :
And gliding and springing
She went, ever singing
In murmurs as soft as sleep;

The Earth seemed to love her,
And Heaven smiled above her,
As she lingered towards the deep.
Then Alpheus bold,

On his glacier cold,

With his trident the mountains strook;

And opened a chasm
In the rocks;

with the spasm

All Erymanthus shook.

And the black south wind
It concealed behind
The urns of the silent snow,
And earthquake and thunder
Did rend in sunder

The bars of the springs below:
The beard and the hair
Of the river-god were

Seen through the torrent's sweep,
As he followed the light
Of the fleet nymph's flight
To the brink of the Dorian deep.

"O, save me! O, guide me,
And bid the deep hide me!
For he grasps me now by the hair! "
The loud Ocean heard,

To its blue depth stirred,

And divided at her prayer;

And under the water

The Earth's white daughter

Fled like a sunny beam;

Behind her descended
Her billows unblended
With the brackish Dorian stream.
Like a gloomy stain.
On the emerald main,
Alpheus rushed behind,--
As an eagle pursuing
A dove to its ruin

Down the streams of the cloudy wind.

Under the bowers

Where the Ocean Powers

Sit on their pearlèd thrones,
Through the coral woods
Of the weltering floods,
Over heaps of unvalued stones,
Through the dim beams
Which amid the streams

Weave a net-work of colored light,
And under the caves
Where the shadowy waves
Are as green as the forest's night
Outspeeding the shark,
And the sword-fish dark,
Under the ocean-foam,

And up through the rifts
Of the mountain clifts

They passed to their Dorian home.

And now from their fountains
In Enna's mountains,

Down one vale where the morning basks,

Like friends once parted, Grown single-hearted, They ply their watery tasks.

342

THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT.

At sunrise they leap
From their cradles steep
In the cave of the shelving hill;
At noontide they flow
Through the woods below,
And the meadows of Asphodel;
And at night they sleep
In the rocking deep

Beneath the Ortygian shore ;
Like spirits that lie
In the azure sky,

When they love, but live no more.

My loved, my honored, much respected friend!
No mercenary bard his homage pays;
With honest pride I scorn each selfish end :

My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise : To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,

The lowly train in life's sequestered scene; The native feelings strong, the guileless ways; What Aiken in a cottage would have been Ah! tho' his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween!

November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh;

The shortening winter-day is near a close ; The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh,

The blackening trains o' craws to their repose:

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The toil-worn cotter frae his labor goes, This night his weekly moil is at an end, Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, And weary o'er the moor his course does homeward bend.

At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;

Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin', stacher thro'
To meet their dad, wi' flichterin' noise and glee.
His wee bit ingle, blinkin' bonnily,

His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie wifie's smile, The lisping infant prattling on his knee,

Does all his weary, karking care beguile, An' makes him quite forget his labor an' his toil.

9

Belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in,
At service out, among the farmers roun
Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin
A cannie errand to a neebor town:

Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown,

In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e, Comes hame, perhaps, to show a braw new gown, Or deposit her sair-won penny-fee, To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.

With joy unfeigned, brothers and sisters meet,

An' each for other's welfare kindly spiers : The social hours, swift-winged, unnoticed fleet; Each tells the unco's that he sees or hears The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years; Anticipation forward points the view. The mother, wi' her needle an' her shears,

Gars auld claes look amaist as weel 's the new; The father mixes a' wi' admonition due.

344

THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT.

Their master's an' their mistress's command
The younkers a' are warnèd to obey;
And mind their labors wi' an eydent hand,

An' ne'er, tho' out o' sight, to jauk or play : “And, O, be sure to fear the Lord alway!

And mind your duty, duly, morn and night! Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray, Implore his counsel and assisting might: They never sought in vain, that sought the Lord aright!'

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But, hark! a rap comes gently to the door;
Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same,
Tells how a neebor lad cam o'er the moor,

To do some errands, and convoy her hame. The wily mother sees the conscious flame

Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush ner cheek; With heart-struck, anxious care inquires his name, While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak; Weel pleased the mother hears, it's nae wild, worthless rake.

Wi' kindly welcome Jenny brings him ben;

A strappan youth; he takes the mother's eye; Blythe Jenny sees the visit 's no ill-ta'en;

The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye. The youngster's artless heart o'erflows with joy,

But blate and laithfu’, scarce can weel behave; The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy

What makes the youth sae bashfu' and sae grave; Weel pleased to think her bairn 's respected like the

lave.

O happy love, where love like this is found!

O heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare! I 've paced much this weary, mortal round, And sage experience bids me this declare :