O Caledonia! stern and wild, Land of the mountain and the flood, That knits me to thy rugged strand! Still, as I view each well-known scene, Think what is now, and what hath been, Seems, as to me, of all bereft, Sole friends thy woods and streams were left; And thus I love them better still By Yarrow's stream still let me REBECCA'S HYMN. WHEN Israel, of the Lord beloved, Out from the land of bondage came, Her fathers' God before her moved, An awful guide in smoke and flame. By day, along the astonished lands The cloudy pillar glided slow; By night, Arabia's crimsoned sands Returned the fiery column's glow. There rose the choral hymn of praise, And trump and timbrel answered keen, And Zion's daughters poured their lays, [tween. With priest's and warrior's voice beNo portents now our foes amaze, Forsaken Israel wanders lone; Our fathers would not know Thy ways, And Thou hast left them to their own. But present still, though now unseen! When brightly shines the prosperous day, Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screen In shade and storm the frequent night, Be Thou, long suffering, slow to wrath, A burning and a shining light! Our harps we left by Babel's streams, The tyrant's jest, the Gentile's scorn; No censer round our altar beams, And mute are timbrel, harp, and horn. I have strained the spider's thread 'Gainst the promise of a maid; I have weighed a grain of sand 'Gainst her plight of heart and hand; I told my true love of the token How her faith proved light and her word was broken; Again her word and truth she plight, And I believed them again ere night. WANDERING WILLIE. ALL joy was bereft me the day that you left me, And climbed the tall vessel to sail yon high sea; [it, O weary betide it! I wandered beside And banned it for parting my Willie and me. Far o'er the wave hast thou followed thy fortune, Oft fought the squadrons of France Now I'll ne'er ask if thine eyes may and of Spain; Ae kiss of welcome's worth twenty at have wandered, Enough, thy leal heart has been constant to me. THE SUN UPON THE WEIRDLAW HILL. THE sun upon the Weirdlaw Hill, The western wind is hush and still, In Ettrick's vale is sinking sweet; The lake lies sleeping at my feet. Yet not the landscape to mine eye Bears those bright hues that once Though evening, with her richest dye, it bore; Flames o'er the hills of Ettrick's shore. With listless look along thy plain, Of Melrose rise in ruined pride. The hill, the stream, the tower, the tree, Are they still such as once they were ? Or is the dreary change in me? Alas, the warped and broken board, How can it bear the painter's dye! The harp of strained and tuneless chord, How to the minstrel's skill reply! To aching eyes each landscape lowers, To feverish pulse each gale blows chill; And Araby's or Eden's bowers THE VIOLET. THE violet in her greenwood bower, Where birchen boughs with hazels mingle, May boast itself the fairest flower In glen, or copse, or forest dingle. Though fair her gems of azure hue, Beneath the dewdrop's weight reclining; I've seen an eye of lovelier hue, More sweet through watery lustre shining. The summer sun that dew shall dry, Ere yet the day be past its mor row: Nor longer in my false love's eye Remained the tear of parting sor row. HELVELLYN. I CLIMBED the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn, Lakes and mountains beneath me gleamed misty and wide; All was still, save by fits, when the eagle was yelling, And starting around me the echoes replied. On the right, Striden-edge round the Red-tarn was bending, And Catchedicam its left verge was defending, One huge nameless rock in the front But meeter for thee, gentle lover of was ascending, When I marked the sad spot where the wanderer had died. nature, To lay down thy head like the meek mountain lamb, The whirlwind storm may sweep them from their place; Nay, this is not enough, the fierce What matter if by this affliction sirocco driven Straight to their God, the fountain of all grace? And when, at length, the final trial cometh, Though hurled to unknown worlds, they shall not die; Borne not by winds of wrath, but God's own angels, They feed upon His love and dwell beneath His eye. Till by the angel of the resurrection, One awful blast through heaven and earth be blown; Those roots upon the waves of ocean Then soul and body, met no more to floating, That in their desert homes no moisture knew, sunder, That all God's ways are true and just shall own! |