And sunflowers, like a garment prank'd with gold;
Acres and miles of opal asphodel
Where sports and couches the black-eyed gazelle.
Here, too, the air's harmonious-deep-toned doves
Coo to the fife-like carol of the lark ;
And when they cease, the holy nightingale
Winds up his long, long shakes of ecstasy,
With notes that seem but the protracted sounds
Of glassy runnels bubbling over rocks.
To Love in my heart, I exclaim'd t'other morning, Thou hast dwelt here too long, little lodger, take warn
Thou shalt tempt me no more from my life's sobe.
To go gadding, bewitch'd by the young eyes of beauty For weary's the wooing, ah! weary,
When an old man will have a young dearie.
The god left my heart, at its surly reflections,
But came back on pretext of some sweet recollections,
And he made me forget what I ought to remember.
That the rose-bud of June cannot bloom in November.
Ah! Tom, 'tis all o'er with thy gay days-
Write psalms, and not songs for the ladies.
But time's been so far from my wisdom enriching,
That the longer I live, beauty seems more bewitching;
And the only new lore my experience traces,
Is to find fresh enchantment in magical faces.
How weary is wisdom, how weary!
When one sits by a smiling young dearie!
And should she be wroth that my homage pursues her, I will turn and retort on my lovely accuser;
Who's to blame, that my heart by your image is
It is you, the enchantress-not I, the enchanted.
Would you have me behave more discreetly,
Beauty, look not so killingly sweetly.
WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF LA PEROUSE'S VOYAGES
LOVED Voyager! his pages had a zest
More sweet than fiction to my wondering breast,
When, rapt in fancy, many a boyish day
I track'd his wanderings o'er the watery way,
Roam'd round the Aleutian isles in waking dreams,
Or pluck'd the fleur-de-lys by Jesso's streams-
Or gladly leap'd on that far Tartar strand,
Where Europe's anchor ne'er had bit the sand,
Where scarce a roving wild tribe cross'd the plain,
Or human voice broke nature's silent reign;
But vast and grassy deserts feed the bear,
And sweeping deer-herds dread no hunter's snare.
Such young delight his real records brought,
His truth so touch'd romantic springs of thought,
That all my after-life-his fate and fame
Entwined romance with La Perouse's name.-
Fair were his ships, expert his gallant crews,
And glorious was th' emprise of La Perouse,-
Humanely glorious! Men will weep for him,
When many a guilty martial fame is dim:
He plough'd the deep to bind no captive's chain-
Pursued no rapine-strew'd no wreck with slain,
And, save that in the deep themselves lie low,
His heroes pluck'd no wreath from human wo.
"Twas his the earth's remotest bound to scan,
Conciliating with gifts barbaric man—
Enrich the world's contemporaneous mind,
And amplify the picture of mankind.
Far on the vast Pacific-midst those isles,
O'er which the earliest morn of Asia smiles,
He sounded and gave charts to many a shore
And gulf of Ocean new to nautic lore;
Yet he that led Discovery o'er the wave,
Still fills himself an undiscover'd grave.
He came not back,--Conjecture's cheek grew pale,
Year after year—in no propitious gale,
His lilied banner held its homeward way,
And Science sadden'd at her martyr's stay.
An age elapsed—no wreck told where or when
The chief went down with all his gallant men,
Or whether by the storm and wild sea flood
He perish'd, or by wilder men of blood
The shuddering Fancy only guess'd his doom,
And Doubt to Sorrow gave but deeper gloom.
An age elapsed—when men were dead or gray,
Whose hearts had mourn'd him in their youthful day;
Fame traced on Mannicolo's shore at last,
The boiling surge had mounted o'er his mast.
The islesmen told of some surviving men,
But Christian eyes beheld them ne'er again.
Sad bourne of all his toils-with all his band-
To sleep, wreck'd, shroudless, on a savage strand!
Yet what is all that fires a hero's scorn
Of death ?—the hope to live in hearts unborn:
Life to the brave is not its fleeting breath,
But worth-foretasting fame, that follows death.
That worth had La Perouse-that meed he won;
He sleeps his life's long stormy watch is done.
In the great deep, whose boundaries and space
He measured, Fate ordain'd his resting-place;
But bade his fame, like th' Ocean rolling o'er
His relics-visit every earthly shore.
Fair Science on that Ocean's azure robe,
Still writes his name in picturing the globe,
And paints (what faires wreath cou.d glory twine ?) His watery course-a world-encircling line.
THE sunset sheds a horizontal smile
O'er Highland frith and Hebridean isle,
While, gay with gambols of its finny shoals,
The glancing wave rejoices as it rolls
With streamer'd busses, that distinctly shine
All downward, pictured in the glassy brine;
Whose crews, with faces brightening in the sun,
Keep measure with their oars, and all in one
Strike up th' old Gaelic song.-Sweep, rowers, sweep!
The fisher's glorious spoils are in the deep.
Day sinks but twilight owes the traveller soon,
To reach his bourne, a round unclouded moon,
Bespeaking long undarken'd hours of time;
False hope the Scots are steadfast—not their clime.
A war-worn soldier from the western land,
Seek's Cona's vale by Ballihoula's strand;
The vale, by eagle-haunted cliffs o'erhung,
Where Fingal fought and Ossian's harp was strung-
* I received the substance of the tradition on which this Poem is founded, in the first instance, from a friend in London, who wrote to Matthew N. Macdonald, Esq., of Edinburgh. He had the kindness to send me a circumstantial account of the tradition; and that gentleman's knowledge of the Highlands, as well as his particular acquaintance with the district of Glencoe, leave me no doubt of the incident having really happened. I have not departed from the main facts of the tradition as reported to me by Mr. Macdonald; only I have endeavored to color the personages of the story, and to make them as distinctive as possible.
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