V.

GLEN-ALMAIN,

OR

THE NARROW GLEN.

In this still place, remote from men,
Sleeps Ossian, in the NARROW GLEN;
In this still place, where murmurs on
But one meek Streamlet, only one:
He

sang of battles, and the breath

Of stormy war, and violent death;

And should, methinks, when all was past,

Have rightfully been laid at last

Where rocks were rudely heaped, and rent

As by a spirit turbulent;

Where sights were rough, and sounds were wild,

And every thing unreconciled;

In some complaining, dim retreat,
For fear and melancholy meet;
But this is calm; there cannot be

A more entire tranquillity.

Does then the Bard sleep here indeed? Or is it but a groundless creed?

What matters it? I blame them not
Whose Fancy in this lonely Spot

Was moved; and in such way expressed
Their notion of its perfect rest.

A Convent, even a hermit's Cell

Would break the silence of this Dell:
It is not quiet, is not ease;

But something deeper far than these:
The separation that is here
Is of the grave; and of austere
Yet happy feelings of the dead:
And, therefore, was it rightly said
That Ossian, last of all his race!
Lies buried in this lonely place.

VI.

STEPPING WESTWARD.

While my Fellow-traveller and I were walking by the side of Loch Ketterine, one fine evening after sunset, in our road to a Hut where in the course of our Tour we had been hospitably entertained some weeks before, we met, in one of the loneliest parts of that solitary region, two well-dressed Women, one of whom said to us, by way of greeting, "What, you are stepping westward ?"

"What you are stepping westward ?” -"Twould be a wildish destiny,

If we, who thus together roam

In a strange Land, and far from home,
Were in this place the guests of Chance:
Yet who would stop, or fear to advance,
Though home or shelter he had none,
With such a Sky to lead him on?

The dewy ground was dark and cold;
Behind, all gloomy to behold;
And stepping westward seemed to be
A kind of heavenly destiny :

I liked the greeting; 'twas a sound
Of something without place or bound;
And seemed to give me spiritual right
To travel through that region bright.

The voice was soft, and she who spake
Was walking by her native Lake :
The salutation had to me

The very sound of courtesy:

Its power was felt; and while my eye
Was fixed upon the glowing sky,
The echo of the voice enwrought
A human sweetness with the thought
Of travelling through the world that lay
Before me in my endless way.

VII.

THE SOLITARY REAPER.

BEHOLD her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!

Alone she cuts, and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt More welcome notes to weary bands Of Travellers in some shady haunt, Among Arabian Sands:

Such thrilling voice was never heard In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird, Breaking the silence of the seas Among the farthest Hebrides.