Fears, sighs, and wishes of th' enamour'd breast, With rosy hand the spicy fruit she brought, Ambiguous looks, that scorn and yet relent, Sleep, wayward God! hath sworn, while these remain, And cheerful Hope, so oft invok'd in vain, If, bound by vows to Friendship's gentle side, Sweet Peace, who long hath shunn'd my plaintive day, Consents at length to bring me short delight, Thy careless steps may scare her doves away, And grief with raven note usurp the night. ODE ON THE POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS OF THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND; Considered as the subject of Poetry. INSCRIBED TO MR. JOHN HOME. HOME, thou return'st from Thames, whose Naiads long Have seen thee lingering with a fond delay, Mid those soft friends, whose hearts, some future day, Shall melt, perhaps, to hear thy tragic song.* Whom, long-endear'd, thou leav'st by Lavant's side; Together let us wish him lasting truth, And joy untainted, with his destin'd bride. Thou need'st but take thy pencil to thy hand, How truly did Collins predict Home's tragic powers! ↑ A gentleman of the name of Barrow, who introduced Ilome to Collins. Thiere, must thou wake perforce thy Doric quill; How, wing'd with fate, their self-shot arrows fly, Nor thou, though learn'd, his homelier thoughts Let thy sweet muse the rural faith sustain; E'en yet preserv'd, how often may'st thou hear, Old Runic bards shall seem to rise around, Their matted hair with boughs fantastic crown'd: Whether thou bid'st the well-taught hind repeat The choral dirge, that mourns some chieftain brave, When every shrieking maid her bosom beat, And strew'd with choicest herbs his scented grave! Or whether, sitting in the shepherd's shiel,* * A summer hut, built in the high part of the mountains, to tend their flocks in the warm season, when the pasture is fine. Thou hear'st some sounding tale of war's alarms; When at the bugle's call, with fire and steel, The sturdy clans pour'd forth their brawny swarms, And hostile brothers met, to prove each other's arms. 'Tis thine to sing, how, framing hideous spells, In Sky's lone isle, the gifted wizard-seer, Lodg'd in the wintry cave with Fate's fell spear, Or in the depth of Uist's dark forest dwells: How they, whose sight such dreary dreams engross, With their own vision oft astonish'd droop, When, o'er the wat'ry strath, or quaggy moss, They see the gliding ghosts unbodied troop. Or, if in sports, or on the festive green, Their destin'd glance some fated youth descry, Who now, perhaps, in lusty vigour seen, And rosy health, shall soon lamented die. For them the viewless forms of air obey; Their bidding heed, and at their beck repair: They know what spirit brews the stormful day, To monarchs dear,* some hundred miles astray, *The fifth stanza, and the half of the sixth, in Dr. Carlyle's copy, printed in the first volume of the "Transactions" of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, being deficient, have been supplied by Mr. Mackenzie; whose lines are here annexed, for the purpose of comparison, and to do justice to the elegant author of the Man of Feeling: "Or on some bellying rock that shades the deep, The seer, in Sky, shriek'd as the blood did flow, When headless Charles warm on the scaffold lay! Or in the arched cave, where deep and dark The seer's entranced eye can well survey, Through the dim air who guides the driving storm, And points the wretched bark its destin'd prey. Or him who hovers on his flagging wing, [haste. O'er the dire whirlpool, that, in ocean's waste, Draws instant down whate'er devoted thing The falling breeze within its reach hath plac'dThe distant seamen hears, and flies with trembling Or, if on land the fiend exerts his sway, Silent he broods o'er quicksand, bog, or fen, Far from the sheltering roof and haunts of men, When witched darkness shuts the eye of day, And shrouds each star that wont to cheer the night; Or, if the drifted snow perplex the way, With treacherous gleam he lures the fated wight, And leads him floundering on and quite astray."* Shortly after these lines by Mr. Mackenzie had been published, the following were produced; which many readers probably will think have at least as much of Collins's manner in them: "For oft when Eve hath spread her dusky veil, |