O Music, sphere-descended maid, To fair Fidele's grassy tomb Soft maids and village hinds shall bring Each opening sweet, of earliest bloom, And rifle all the breathing Spring. No wailing ghost shall dare appear And melting virgins own their love. No wither'd witch shall here be seen, No goblins lead their nightly crew; The female fays shall haunt the green, And dress thy grave with pearly dew. The red-breast oft at evening hours When howling winds, and beating rain, The tender thought on thee shall dwell. Each lonely scene shall thee restore, AN ODE ON THE POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS OF THE CONSIDERED AS THE SUBJECT OF POETRY. HOME, thou return'st from Thames, whose Naiads Have seen thee lingering with a fond delay, There must thou wake perforce thy Doric quill; "Tis Fancy's land to which thou sett'st thy feet; DIRGE IN CYMBELINE, To the swart tribes, their creamy bowls allots; By night they sip it round the cottage-door, While airy minstrels warble jocund notes. SUNG BY GUIDERUS AND ARVIRAGUS OVER FIDELE, There, every herd, by sad experience, knows SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD. 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. Go! nor regardless, while these numbers boast My short-liv'd bliss, forget my social name; But think, far off, how, on the Southern coast, How, wing'd with fate, their elf-shot arrows fly, When the sick ewe her summer food foregoes, Or, stretch'd on earth, the heart-smit heifers lie. Such airy beings awe th' untutor'd swain: Nor thou, though learn'd, his homelier thoughts neglect ; Let thy sweet Muse the rural faith sustain; These are the themes of simple, sure effect, That add new conquests to her boundless reign, And fill with double force her heart-commanding strain. How truly did Collins predict Home's tragic powers! † A gentleman of the name of Barrow, who introduced Home to Collins. E'en yet preserv'd, how often may'st thou hear, Where to the Pole the Boreal mountains run, Taught by the father, to his listening son; Strange lays, whose power had charm'd a Spenser's ear. At every pause, before thy mind possest, Old Runic bards shall seem to rise around, With uncouth lyres, in many-color'd vest, Their matted hair with boughs fantastic crown'd: Whether thou bidd'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, 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 watery 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 vigor 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, These, too, thou 'lt sing! for well thy magic Muse And heartless, oft like moody madness, stare To see the phantom train their secret work prepare. To monarchs dear, some hundred miles astray, In the first year of the first George's reign, They mourn'd in air, fell, fell Rebellion slain! And as, of late, they joy'd in Preston's fight, Saw at sad Falkirk all their hopes near crown'd! They rav'd! divining through their second-sight, Pale, red Culloden, where these hopes were drown'd! Illustrious William! Britain's guardian name! One William sav'd us from a tyrant's stroke; He, for a sceptre, gain'd heroic fame, But thou, more glorious, Slavery's chain hast broke, To reign a private man, and bow to Freedom's yoke! Ah, luckless swain, o'er all unblest, indeed! Whom late bewilder'd in the dank, dark fen, Far from his flocks, and smoking hamlet, then! To that sad spot where hums the sedgy weed: On him, enrag'd, the fiend, in angry mood, Shall never look with pity's kind concern, But instant, furious, raise the whelming flood O'er its drown'd banks, forbidding all return! Or, if he meditate his wish'd escape, By young Aurora, Collins undoubtedly meant the first appearance of the northern lights,, which happened about the year 1715; at least, it is most highly probable, from this peculiar circumstance, that no ancient writer whatever has taken any notice of them, nor even any one modern, previous to the above period. ↑ Second-sight is the term that is used for the divination of the Highlanders. § A fiery meteor, called by various names, such as Will with the Wisp, Jack with the Lantern, &c. It hovers in 1 The late Duke of Cumberland, who defeated the Pre- the air over marshy and fenny places. tender at the battle of Culloden. The water-fiend. SUPERSTITIONS OF THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND. To that hoar pile* which still its ruin shows: In whose small vaults a Pigmy-folk is found, Or thither, where beneath the show'ry west No slaves revere them, and no wars invade : The rifted mounds their yawning cells unfold, And forth the monarchs stalk with sovereign power, In pageant robes, and wreath'd with sheeny gold, And on their twilight tombs aërial council hold. tides, Fair Nature's daughter, Virtue, yet abides. Of those whose lives are yet sincere and plain, And all their prospect but the wintry main. With sparing temperance at the needful time All hail, ye scenes that o'er my soul prevail! Ye splendid friths and lakes, which, far away, But, oh, o'er all, forget not Kilda's race, On whose bleak rocks, which brave the wasting The time shall come, when I, perhaps, may tread They drain the scented spring; or, hunger-prest, Along th' Atlantic rock, undreading, climb, And of its eggs despoil the solan's nest. Thus blest in primal innocence they live, Suffic'd and happy with that frugal fare Which tasteful toil and hourly danger give. Hard is their shallow soil, and bleak and bare; Nor ever vernal bee was heard to murmur there! Nor need'st thou blush that such false themes en The native legends of thy land rehearse; In scenes like these, which, daring to depart From sober truth, are still to Nature true, And call forth fresh delight to Fancy's view, One of the Hebrides is called the Isle of Pigmies; where it is reported that several miniature bones of the human species have been dug up in the ruins of a chapel there. 509 † Icolmkill, one of the Hebrides, where near sixty of the ancient Scottish, Irish, and Norwegian kings are in terred. How have I sat, when pip'd the pensive wind, Believ'd the magic wonders which he sung! Hence, at each picture, vivid life starts here! Hence his warm lay with softest sweetness flows! Melting it flows, pure, murmuring, strong, and clear, An aquatic bird like a goose, on the eggs of which the inhabitants of St. Kilda, another of the Hebrides, chiefly subsist. And fills the impassion'd heart, and wins th' harmonious ear! gage ODE Thy gentle mind, of fairer stores possest; ON For not alone they touch the village breast, But fill'd in elder time th' historic page. THE DEATH OF MR. THOMSON. There, Shakspeare's self, with ev'ry garland crown'd, The scene of the following Stanzas is supposed to lie on the Flew to those fairy climes his fancy sheen, In musing hour; his wayward sisters found, Thames, near Richmond. And with their terrors dress'd the magic scene. Through the dark cave in gleamy pageant pass'd. Could once so well my answering bosom pierce; Proceed, in forceful sounds, and color bold, Your lowly glenst o'erhung with spreading broom; Or o'er your stretching heaths, by Fancy led; Or o'er your mountains creep, in awful gloom! Then will I dress once more the faded bower, Where Jonson sat in Drummond's classic shade ;t Or crop, from Tiviotdale, each lyric flower, And mourn, on Yarrow's banks, where Willy's laid! Meantime, ye powers, that on the plains which bore IN yonder grave a Druid lies, Where slowly winds the stealing wave: The year's best sweets shall duteous rise, To deck its poet's sylvan grave. In yon deep bed of whispering reeds His airy harp shall now be laid, May love through life the soothing shade. Then maids and youths shall linger here, And, while its sounds at distance swell, Shall sadly seem in Pity's ear To hear the woodland pilgrim's knell. Remembrance oft shall haunt the shore *Three rivers in Scotland. † Valleys. Ben Jonson paid a visit on foot, in 1619, to the Scotch poet, Drummond, at his seat of Hawthornden, within four miles of Edinburgh. § Barrow, it seems, was at the Edinburgh University, which is in the county of Lothian. The harp of Eolus, of which see a description in the Castle of Indolence. JOHN DYER. His health being now in a delicate state, he was advised by his friends to take orders; and he was accordingly ordained by Dr. Thomas, Bishop of Lincoln; and, entering into the married state, he JOHN DYER, an agreeable poet, was the son of a solicitor at Aberglasney, in Carmarthenshire, where he was born in 1700. He was brought up at Westminster-school, and was designed by his father for his own profession; but being at liberty, in consequence sat down on a small living in Leicestershire. This of his father's death, to follow his own inclination, he exchanged for one in Lincolnshire; but the fenny he indulged what he took for a natural taste in country in which he was placed did not agree with painting, and entered as pupil to Mr. Richardson. his health, and he complained of the want of books After wandering for some time about South Wales and company. In 1757, he published his largest and the adjacent counties as an itinerant artist, he work, "The Fleece," a didactic poem, in four books, appeared convinced that he should not attain to of which the first part is pastoral, the second meeminence in that profession. In 1727, he first made chanical, the third and fourth historical and geohimself known as a poet, by the publication of his graphical. This poem has never been very popu"Grongar Hill," descriptive of a scene afforded by lar, many of its topics not being well adapted to his native country, which became one of the most poetry; yet the opinions of critics have varied popular pieces of its class, and has been admitted concerning it. It is certain that there are many into numerous collections. Dyer then travelled to pleasing, and some grand and impressive passages Italy, still in pursuit of professional improvement; in the work; but, upon the whole, the general and if he did not acquire this in any considerable feeling is, that the length of the performance degree, he improved his poetical taste, and laid in a necessarily imposed upon it a degree of tediousstore of new images. These he displayed in a poem ness. of some length, published in 1740, which he entitled Dyer did not long survive the completion of his "The Ruins of Rome," that capital having been the book. He died of a gradual decline in 1758, leavprincipal object of his journeyings. Of this work ing behind him, besides the reputation of an ingeniit may be said, that it contains many passages of ous poet, the character of an honest, humane and real poetry, and that the strain of moral and politi-worthy person. cal reflection denotes a benevolent and enlightened mind. GRONGAR HILL SILENT nymph, with curious eye! So oft I have, the evening still, With my hand beneath my head; From house to house, from hill to hill, About his chequer'd sides I wind, |
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