The scenes of former life return; Immured in mortal forms to mourn. Can mingle with the mortal throng; I hear, I hear, with awful dread, Sweet siren, breathe the powerful strain! 66 The crystal tower enchanted see! "Now break," she cries, "ye fairy charms!" As round she sails with fond alarms, "Now break, and set my true love free!" Lord Barnard is to greenwood gone, Where fair" Gil Morrice" sits alone, And careless combs his yellow hair; Ah! mourn the youth, untimely slain! The meanest of Lord Barnard's train The hunter's mangled head must bear. Or, change these notes of deep despair, For love's more soothing tender air: Sing how, beneath the greenwood-tree, "Brown Adam's" love maintain'd her truth, Nor would resign the exiled youth For any knight the fair could see. And sing" the hawk of pinion gray," For he could speak as well as fly; Her brethren how the fair beguiled, And on her Scottish lover smiled, As slow she raised her languid eye. Fair was her cheek's carnation glow, Like evening's dewy star her eye; Her graceful bosom heaved the sigh. In youth's first morn, alert and gay, Along the banks of Teviot's stream. Sweet sounds! that oft have sooth'd to rest And thus, the exiled Scotian maid, To visit Syria's date-crown'd shore; Soft siren! whose enchanting strain Through scenes that I no more must view. 66 WHERE Bortha hoarse, that loads the meads with Rolls her red tide to Teviot's western strand, [sand, Through slaty hills, whose sides are shagg'd with thorn, Where springs, in scatter'd tufts, the dark-green Here fixed his mountain-home; a wide domain, The waning harvest-moon shone cold and bright; The warder's horn was heard at dead of night; And as the massy portals wide were flung, With stamping hoofs the rocky pavement rung. What fair, half veil'd, leans from her latticed hall, Where red the wavering gleams of torchlight fall ? "Tis Yarrow's fairest flower, who, through the gloom, Looks, wistful, for her lover's dancing plume. Amid the piles of spoil that strew'd the ground, Her ear, all anxious, caught a wailing sound; With trembling haste the youthful matron flew, And from the hurried heaps an infant drew. Scared at the light, his little hands he flung Around her neck, and to her bosom clung; While beauteous Mary sooth'd, in accents mild, His fluttering soul, and clasp'd her foster child. Of milder mood the gentle captive grew, Nor loved the scenes that scared his infant view; In vales remote, from camps and castles far, He shunn'd the fearful, shuddering joy of war; Content the loves of simple swains to sing, His are the strains, whose wandering echoes thrill JAMES MONTGOMERY. 1772. COLUMBUS. LONG lay the ocean-paths from man conceal'd: Through calm and tempest, with unsetting ray; Then man no longer plied with timid oar While free, as clouds the liquid ether sweep, [deep; From clime to clime the wanderer loved to roam, The waves his heritage, the world his home. Then first Columbus, with the mighty hand Of grasping genius, weigh'd the sea and land; The floods o'erbalanced: where the tide of light, Day after day, roll'd down the gulf of night, 'There seem'd one waste of waters long in vain His spirit brooded o'er the Atlantic main; When sudden, as creation burst from naught, Sprang a new world, through his stupendous thought, Light, order, beauty! While his mind explored The unveiling mystery, his heart adored;" Where'er sublime imagination trod, He heard the voice, he saw the face of God. Far from the western cliffs he cast his eye "Ah! on this sea of glory might I sail, Thoughtful he wander'd on the beach alone; Mild o'er the deep the vesper planet shone, The eye of evening, brightening through the west Till the sweet moment when it shut to rest: "Whither, oh golden Venus! art thou fled? Not in the ocean-chambers lies thy bed; Round the dim world thy glittering chariot drawn, Pursues the twilight or precedes the dawn; Thy beauty noon and midnight never see, The morn and eve divide the year with thee." Soft fell the shades, till Cynthia's slender bow Crested the farthest wave, then sunk below: |