For manhood to enjoy his strength;
And age to wear away in!
Yon cottage seems a bower of bliss:
It promises protection
To studious ease, and generous cares,
And every chaste affection!
How sweet, on this autumnal day,
The wild wood's fruits to gather,
And on my true-love's forehead plant
A crest of blooming heather!
And what if I enwreathed my own!
"Twere no offence to reason;
The sober hills thus deck their brows
To meet the wintry season.
I see but not by sight alone,
Loved Yarrow, have I won thee;
A ray of fancy still survives-
Her sunshine plays upon thee!
Thy ever-youthful waters keep
A course of lively pleasure;
And gladsome notes my lips can breathe,
Accordant to the measure.
The vapours linger round the heights,
They melt-and soon must vanish;
One hour is theirs, nor more is mine-
Sad thought, which I could banish,
But that I know, where'er I go,
Thy genuine image, Yarrow,
Will dwell with me, to heighten joy,
And cheer my mind in sorrow.
ROM rise of morn till set of sun,
I've seen the mighty Mohawk run:
And as I marked the woods of pine,
Along his mirror darkly shine,
Like tall and gloomy forms that pass
Before the wizard's midnight glass;
And as I viewed the hurrying pace
With which he ran his turbid race,
Rushing alike untired and wild
Through shades that frowned and flowers that smiled,
Flying by every green recess
That wooed him to its calm caress,
Yet sometimes turning with the wind,
As if to leave one look behind;-
Oh! I have thought, and thinking, sighed,
How like to thee, thou restless tide,
May be the lot, the life of him
Who roams along the water's brim!
Through what alternate shades of woe
And flowers of joy my path may go!
How many an humble, still retreat,
May rise to court my weary feet,
While still pursuing, still unblest,
I wander on, nor dare to rest!
But urgent, as the doom that calls
Thy water to its destined falls,
I see the world's bewildering force
Hurry my heart's devoted course
From lapse to lapse, till life be done,
And the lost current cease to run!
Oh, may my falls be bright as thine!
May Heaven's forgiving rainbow shine
Upon the mist that circles me,
As soft as now it hangs on thee!
H, I have seen the Falls of Clyde,
And never can forget them;
For Memory, in her hours of pride, 'Midst gems of thought will set them, With every loving thing allied
I will not now regret them!
And I have stood by Bonnington,
And watched the sparkling current
Come like a smiling wood-nymph on-
And then, a mighty torrent !
With power to rend the cliffs anon,
Had they not before been rent.
And I have been in Balfour's cave;
But why hath chisel wrought it,
Since he, the brutal-but the brave,
In sore constraining sought it?
Dark days! when savage fought with slave,
Heroically fought it.
And I have hung o'er Burley's leap,
And watched the streams all blending, As down that chasm so dark and steep The torrents were descending;
How awful is the chaos deep
Those rocks so high impending!
And I have worshipped Corra Linn,
Clyde's most majestic daughter;
And those eternal rainbows seen
That arch the foaming water:
And I have owned that lovely queen,
And cheerful fealty brought her.
And I have wandered in the glen
Where Stone-byres rolls so proudly;
And watched, and mused, and watched again,
Where cliff, and chasm, and cloud lie,
Listening, while Nature's denizen
Talks to the woods so loudly.
Yes! I have seen the Falls of Clyde,
And never can forget them;
For Memory, in her hours of pride,
'Midst gems of thought will set them.
With life's most lovely scenes allied—
I will not now regret them!
HE thoughts are strange that crowd into my brain
While I look upward to thee. It would seem
As if God poured thee from his "hollow hand,"
And hung his bow upon thine awful front,
And spoke in that loud voice, which seemed to him
Who dwelt in Patmos for his Saviour's sake,
"The sound of many waters ;" and had bade
Thy flood to chronicle the ages back,
And notch his centuries in the eternal rocks.
Deep calleth unto deep. And what are we,
That hear the question of that voice sublime?
Oh! what are all the notes that ever rung
From war's vain trumpet, by thy thundering side!
Yea, what is all the riot that man makes,
In his short life, to thy unceasing roar !
And yet, bold babbler, what art thou to Him
Who drowned a world, and heaped the waters far
Above its loftiest mountains?—a light wave
That breaks and whispers of its Maker's might.
PON another shore I stood
And looked upon another flood,*
Great Ocean's self! ('tis he who fills
The vast and awful depth of hills,)
Where many an elf was playing round,
Who treads unshod his classic ground;
And speaks his native rocks among,
As Fingal spoke and Ossian sung.
Night fell, and dark and darker grew
That narrow sea, that narrow sky,
As o'er the glimmering waves we flew,
The sea-bird rustling, wailing by,
And now the grampus, half descried,
Black and huge above the tide;
The cliffs and promontories there,
Front to front, and broad and bare,
Each beyond each, with giant-feet
Advancing as in haste to meet
The shattered fortress, whence the Dane
Blew his shrill blast, nor rushed in vain,
Tyrant of the drear domain:
All into midnight-shadow sweep
"When day springs upward from the deep!" +
Kindling the waters in its flight,
The prow wakes splendour; and the oar,
That rose and fell unseen before,
Flashes in a sea of light!
Glad sign, and sure! for now we hail
Thy flowers, Glenfinnoch, in the gale;
And bright indeed the path should be
That leads to Friendship and to thee!
O blest retreat, and sacred too!
Sacred as when the bell of prayer
A phenomenon described by many navigatorn.
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