The Complete Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell

The chill bleak summit of eternal snow,

The wide wild glen, the pathless plains below,
The dark blue rocks in barren grandeur piled,
The cuckoo sighing to the pensive wild!

'Far different these from all that charmed before '—
The grassy banks of Clutha's winding shore,
Her sloping vales with waving forests lined,
Her smooth blue lakes unruffled by the wind.
Hail, happy Clutha! glad shall I survey
Thy gilded turrets from the distant way;
Thy sight shall cheer the weary traveller's toil,
And joy shall hail me to my native soil.

NOTE

LINE 19. The quoted line is from The Deserted Village.

PART OF CHORUS FROM BUCHANAN'S TRAGEDY OF JEPHTHES

(Translated from the Latin in 1796)

GLASSY Jordan, smooth meandering
Jacob's flowery meads between,
Lo! thy waters, gently wandering,
Lave the valleys rich and green.

When the winter, keenly showering,
Strips fair Salem's holy shade,
There thy current, broader pouring,
Lingers in the leafless glade. . .

...

When shall freedom, holy charmer,
Cheer my long-benighted soul?
When shall Israel, fierce in armour,

Burst the tyrant's base control ? . . .

ΙΟ

Gallant nation! nought appalled you,
Bold in Heaven's propitious hour,
When the voice of freedom called you
From a tyrant's haughty power;

When their chariots, clad in thunder,
Swept the ground in long array;
When the ocean, burst asunder,

Hovered o'er your sandy way.

Whither fled, O altered nation!
Whither fled that generous soul?
Dead to freedom's inspiration,

Slaves of Ammon's base control!

God of heaven! whose voice commanding
Bids the whirlwind scour the deep-
Or the waters, smooth expanding,
Robed in glassy radiance, sleep-. . .

Grasp, O God! thy flaming thunder;
Launch thy stormy wrath around!
Cleave their battlements asunder,

Shake their cities to the ground!

Hast thou dared in mad resistance,
Tyrant, to contend with God?
Shall not Heaven's supreme assistance
Snatch us from thy mortal rod? . . .

Mark the battle, mark the ruin !
Havoc loads the groaning plain !
Ruthless vengeance, keen pursuing,
Grasps thee in her iron chain !

...

A FAREWELL TO EDINBURGH

(Written 1797)

FAREWELL, Edina, pleasing name,
Congenial to my heart!

A joyous guest to thee I came,
And mournful I depart.

And fare thee well whose blessings seem
Heaven's blessing to portend-
Endeared by nature and esteem,
My sister and my friend.

LINES

ON LEAVING THE RIVER CART

(Written 1798)

O SCENES of my childhood, and dear to my heart,
Ye green-waving woods on the banks of the Cart!
How oft in the morning of life I have strayed
By the stream of the vale and the grass-covered glade !
Then, then, every rapture was young and sincere,
Ere the sunshine of life had been dimmed by a tear;
And a sweeter delight every scene seemed to lend—
That the mansion of peace was the home of a friend.
Now the scenes of my childhood, and dear to my heart,
All pensive I visit, and sigh to depart;
Their flowers seem to languish, their beauty to cease,
For a stranger inhabits the mansion of peace!
But hushed be the sigh that untimely complains
While friendship with all its enchantment remains-
While it blooms like the flower of a winterless clime,
Untainted by change, unabated by time!

3, oft] blest in later editions.

ΙΟ

6, life had been dimmed] bliss was bedimmed in later editions.

INDEX OF FIRST LINES

A month in summer we rejoice

A chieftain to the Highlands bound

A strain sublime that now my breast inspires
Adieu! Romance's heroines

Adieu the woods and waters' side
Again to the battle, Achaians !
All mortal joys I could forsake
All-powerful charmer of the soul

All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom

Alone to the banks of the dark-rolling Danube

An original something, fair maid, you would win me
Anacreon, the ladies say

And call they this improvement ?-to have changed
And have I lived to see thee, sword in hand
At summer eve, when Heaven's ethereal bow
At the silence of twilight's contemplative hour

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