And sage experience bids me this declare--
'If heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare, One cordial in this melancholy vale,
'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair,
In other's arms breathe out the tender tale,
Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the ev'ning gale.'
But now the supper crowns their simple board,
The halesome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food;
The soupe their only Hawkie does afford,
That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cud:
The dame brings forth in complimental mood,
To grace the lad, her weel-hained kebbuck fell,
An' aft he's prest, an' aft he ca's it guid;
The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell,
How 'twas a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the bell.
The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face,
They round the ingle form a circle wide;
The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace,
The big ha-Bible, ance his father's pride:
His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside,
His lyrant haffets wearing thin and bare ;
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,
He wails a portion with judicious care;
And 'Let us worship God,' he says wi' solemn air.
They chant their artless notes in simple guise;
They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim;
Perhaps Dundee's wild warbling measures rise,
Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name:
Or noble Elgin beets the heav'n-ward flame,
The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays :
Compar'd with these, Italian trills are tame;
The tickl'd ears no heartfelt raptures raise;
Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise.
The priest-like father reads the sacred page,
How Abram was the friend of God on high;
Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage
With Amalek's ungracious progeny;
Or how the royal bard did groaning lie
Beneath the strokes of Heaven's avenging ire;
Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;
Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire;
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.
Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,
How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
How He, who bears in heaven the second name,
Had not on earth whereon to lay his head;
How his first followers and servants sped;
The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:
How he who lone on Patmos banished,
Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand;
[command. And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounced by Heaven's
Then kneeling down to Heaven's Eternal King,
The saint, the father, and the husband prays;
Hope springs exulting on triumphant wing,
That thus they all shall meet in future days;
There ever bask in uncreated rays,
No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator's praise,
In such society, yet still more dear;
While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere.
Compar'd with this, how poor Religion's pride,
In all the pomp of method, and of art,
When men display to congregations wide,
Devotion's every grace, except the heart!
The Pow'r incens'd the pageant will desert,
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole ;
But haply, in some Cottage far apart,
May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul,
And in his book of life the inmates poor enrol.
Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way;
The youngling cottagers retire to rest:
The parent pair their secret homage pay,
And proffer up to Heaven the warm request,
That He who stills the raven's clam'rous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride,
Would, in the way his wisdom sees the best, For them and for their little ones provide;
But chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside.
TO THE CUCKOO.
O blithe new-comer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice:
shall I call thee Bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?
While I am lying on the grass,
I hear thy restless shout:
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
About, and all about!
To me no Babbler with a tale
Of sunshine and of flowers,
Thou tellest, Cuckoo! in a vale
Of visionary hours.
Thrice welcome, Darling of the Spring!
Even yet thou art to me
No bird; but an invisible Thing,
A voice, a mystery.
The same who in my schoolboy days
I listened to; that cry
Which made me look a thousand ways;
In bush, and tree, and sky.
To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods and on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love;
Still long'd for, never seen!
And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain,
And listen till I do beget
That golden time again.
O blessed Bird! the earth we pace
Again appears to be
An unsubstantial, fairy place;
That is fit home for thee!
What, if the little rain should say,
So small a drop as I,
Can ne'er refresh the thirsty plain,
I'll tarry in the sky?'
What if a shining beam of noon
Should in its fountain stay,
Because its feeble light alone
Cannot create a day?
Doth not each rain-drop help to form
The cool refreshing shower?
And every ray of light, to warm
And beautify the flower? *
EARLY RIPE.
It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make man better be,
Or standing long an oak, three hundred years, To fall a log at last, dry, bald and sear.
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
* Anonymous, in Mrs. Jamieson's "Memoirs and Essays."
Although it fall and die that night,
It was the plant and flow'r of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be.
Beautiful, sublime and glorious;
Mild, majestic, foaming, free,-
Over time itself victorious,
Image of eternity.
Sun, and moon, and stars shine o'er thee,
See thy surface ebb and flow;
Yet attempt not to explore thee
In thy soundless depths below.
Whether morning's splendours steep thee
With the rainbow's glowing grace,
Tempests rouse or navies sweep thee,
"Tis but for a moment's space.
Earth, her valleys, and her mountains,
Mortal man's behests obey,
Thy unfathomable fountains
Scoff his search and scorn his sway.
Such art thou-stupendous ocean!
But if overwhelmed by thee,
Can we think without emotion
What must thy Creator be?
'Tis home where the heart is, wherever that be,
In city, in desert, on mountain, in dell;
Not the grandeur, the number, the objects we see,
But that which we love, is the magical spell.
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