ON THE DEATH OF MARSHAL KEITH. KEITH then is fallen! What numbers can there flow, What strains adequate to so great a woe! Ev'n hostile kingdoms in dark pomp appear, To strew promiscuous honours o'er his bier. .5 They mourn his fate, who felt his sword before; What must they feel for whom the warrior stormed, 10 Whose fields he fought, whose every counsel formed! Sad round the corse, a stately ring they stand, 15 This piece appears to have been wrote before the account that M. Keith's funeral obsequies were solemnized by the Austrians had reached Great Fred'ric comes to join the mighty woe; Eternal laurels bind his awful brow; Majestic in his arms he stands, and cries, Is Keith no more? and as he speaks, he sighs; Then grasping his tried sword, the chief alarms, 20 25 30 35 Sad from his native home the chief withdrew; But kindled Scotia's glory as he flew ; 40 On far Iberia built his country's fame, And distant Russia heard the Scottish name. Turks stood aghast, as, o'er the fields of war, He ruled the storm, and urged the martial car. 45 But chief, as relics of a dying race, The Keiths command, in woe, the foremost place; the author; a circumstance which he would probably have converted to very good purpose. BLACKLOCK's Collection, vol. i. p. 229. Edin. 1760. This note is in Macpherson's enigmatical style, and the poem, which first appeared with his initials, (J. M’P. dated Ruthven, October 31, 1758,) in the Scots and Edinburgh Magazines, was evidently inserted by himself in BLACKLOCK'S Collection. |