MANY Sounds were sweet,
Most ravishing, and pleasant to the ear;
But sweeter none than voice of faithful friend,-
Sweet always, sweetest heard in loudest storm.
Some I remember, and will ne'er forget,
My early friends, friends of my evil day;
Friends in my mirth, friends in my misery too;
Friends given by God in mercy and in love;
My counsellors, my comforters and guides;
My joy in grief, my second bliss in joy;
Companions of my young desires; in doubt
My oracles, my wings in high pursuit.
Oh! I remember, and will ne'er forget,
Our meeting-spots, our chosen sacred hours;
Our burning words, that utter'd all the soul;
Our faces beaming with unearthly love;
Sorrow with sorrow sighing, hope with hope
Exulting, heart embracing heart entire.
As birds of social feather helping each
His fellow's flight, we soar'd into the skies,
And cast the clouds beneath our feet, and earth
With all her tardy leaden-footed cares,
And talk'd the speech, and ate the food of heaven.
WITNESS the sprightly joy, when aught unknown
Strikes the quick sense, and wakes each active power
To brisker measures. Witness the neglect
Of all familiar prospects, though beheld
With transport once ;-the fond attentive
Of young astonishment;-the sober zeal
Of age commenting on prodigious things:-
For such the bounteous Providence of Heaven,
In every breast implanting the desire
Of objects new and strange, to urge us on
With unremitted labour to pursue
Those sacred stores, that wait the ripening soul
In truth's exhaustless bosom. What need words
To paint its power? For this the daring youth
Breaks from his weeping mother's anxious arms,
In foreign climes to rove; the pensive sage,
Heedless of sleep or midnight's harmful damp,
Hangs o'er the sickly taper; and, untired,
The virgin follows, with enchanted step,
The mazes of some wild and wondrous tale,
From morn to eve. Hence, finally, by night,
The village matron, round the blazing hearth,
Suspends the infant audience with her tales,
Breathing astonishment! of witching rhymes
And evil spirits; of the deathbed call
Of him, who robb'd the widow, and devour'd
The orphan's portion; of unquiet souls
Risen from the grave, to ease the heavy guilt
Of deeds in life conceal'd; of shapes, that walk,
At dead of night, and clank their chains, and wave
The torch of hell around the murderer's bed.
At every solemn pause, the crowd recoil,
Gazing each other speechless, and congeal'd
With shivering sighs; till, eager for the event,
Around the beldame all erect they hang,
Each trembling heart with grateful terrors quell'd.
LUXURY OF GRIEF AND PITY.
Why the cold urn of her, whom long he loved,
So often fills his arms,-so often draws
His lonely steps, silent and unseen,
pay the mournful tribute of his tears? Oh he will tell thee, that the wealth of worlds Should ne'er seduce his bosom to forego Those sacred hours, when, stealing from the noise Of care and envy, sweet remembrance soothes, With virtue's kindest looks, his aching breast, And turns his tears to rapture. Ask the crowd,
Which flies impatient from the village-walk
To climb the neighbouring cliffs, when far below
The savage winds have hurl'd upon the coast
Some helpless bark; while holy Pity melts
The general eye, or Terror's icy hand
Smites their distorted limbs and horrent hair;
While every mother closer to her breast
Catcheth her child; and, pointing where the waves
Foam through the shatter'd vessel, shrieks aloud,
As one poor wretch, who spreads his piteous arms
For succour, swallow'd by the roaring surge,—
As now another, dash'd against the rock,
Drops lifeless down. O! deemest thou indeed
No pleasing influence here by nature given
To mutual terror and compassion's tears?
No tender charm mysterious, which attracts,
O'er all that edge of pain, the social powers,
To this their proper action and their end?
GRIEF fills the room up of my absent child;
Lies in his bed; walks up and down with me;
Puts on his pretty looks; repeats his words;
Remembers me of all his gracious parts;
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form:
Then have I reason to be fond of grief.
No ceremony that to great ones 'longs,
Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,
Become them with one-half so good a grace,
As mercy does.
Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once;
And he, that might the 'vantage best have took
Found out the remedy. How would you be,
If he, which is the top of judgment, should
But judge you as you are? O think on that;
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like man new made.
THE quality of mercy is not strain'd;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless'd:
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown :
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's,
When mercy seasons justice. Think of this
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.
Shakspeare.
REFLECTIONS ON LEAVING SCOTLAND.
AND must I leave,
Dear land, thy bonny braes, thy dales,
Each haunted by its wizard stream, o'erhung
With all the varied charms of bush and tree;
Thy towering hills, the lineaments sublime
Unchanged of Nature's face, which wont to fill
The eye of Wallace, as he musing plann'd
The grand emprise of setting Scotland free?
And must I leave the friends of youthful years,
And mould my heart anew, to take the stamp
Of foreign friendships in a foreign land,
And learn to love the music of strange tongues?
Yes, I may love the music of strange tongues,
And mould my heart anew, to take the stamp
Of foreign friendships in a foreign land:-
But to my parched mouth's roof cleave this tongue,
My fancy fade into the yellow leaf,
And this oft-pausing heart forget to throb,
If, Scotland, thee and thine I e'er forget.
SCOTTISH EXILE'S REFLECTIONS.
WHAT though the cluster'd vine there hardly tempts
The traveller's hand; though birds of dazzling plume
Perch on the loaded boughs: give me thy woods,
(Exclaims the banish'd man,) thy barren woods,
Poor Scotland! sweeter there the reddening haw,
The sloe, or rowan's bitter bunch, than here
The purple grape: dearer the redbreast's note,
That mourns the fading year in Scotia's vales,
Than Philomel's, where spring is ever new:
More dear to me the redbreast's sober suit,
So like a wither'd leaflet, than the glare
Of gaudy wings, that make the iris dim.
THESE are thy blessings, Industry! rough power,
Whom labour still attends, and sweat, and pain;
Yet the kind source of every gentle art,
And all the soft civility of life;
Raiser of human kind! by Nature cast,
Naked and helpless, out amid the woods
And wilds, to rude inclement elements;
With various seeds of art deep in the mind
Implanted, and profusely pour'd around
Materials infinite, but idle all.
Still unexerted in the unconscious breast,
Slept the lethargic powers; corruption still,
Voracious, swallow'd what the liberal hand
Of bounty scatter'd o'er the savage year;
And still the sad barbarian, roving, mix'd
With beasts of prey, or for his acorn-meal
Fought the fierce tusky boar; a shivering wretch,
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