Then suddenly with timorous eye She half-enclosed me with her arms- 'Twas partly love and partly fear, I calmed her fears, and she was calm, And now once more a tale of wo, When last I sung the cruel scorn, That crazed this bold and lovely knight, And how he roamed the mountain woods, Nor rested day nor night, I promised thee a sister tale Of man's perfidious cruelty; Come, then, and hear what cruel wrong PROFESSOR WILSON. ADDRESS TO A WILD DEER. MAGNIFICENT Creature! so stately and bright! head; Or borne like a whirlwind down on the vale ?--Hail! King of the wild and the beautiful! hail! Hail! Idol divine! whom Nature hath borne O'er a hundred hill-tops since the mists of the morn, Whom the pilgrim lone wandering on mountain and moor, As the vision glides by him, may blameless adore; For the joy of the happy, the strength of the free, Are spread in a garment of glory o'er thee. Up! up to yon cliff! like a king to his throne ! Lo! the clouds in the depth of the sky are at rest; Though your branches now toss in the storm of delight, Like the arms of the pine on your shelterless height. One moment-thou bright Apparition !—delay! Then melt o'er the crags, like the sun from the day. Aloft on the weather-gleam, scorning the earth, The wild spirit hung in majestical mirth : In dalliance with danger, he bounded in bliss, O'er the fathomless gloom of each moaning abyss; O'er the grim rocks careering with prosperous motion, Like a ship by herself in full sail o'er the ocean! Then proudly he turn'd ere he sank to the dell, And shook from his forehead a haughty fare well, While his horns in a crescent of radiance shone, Like a flag burning bright when the vessel is gone. The ship of the desert hath pass'd on the wind, What lonely magnificence stretches around! Each sight how sublime! and how awful each sound! All hush'd and serene, as a region of dreams, The mountains repose 'mid the roar of the streams, Their glens of black umbrage by cataracts riven, But calm their blue tops in the beauty of Heaven. Here the glory of nature hath nothing to fear-Ay! Time the destroyer in power hath been here; And the forest that hung on yon mountain so high, Like a black thunder-cloud on the arch of the sky, Hath gone, like that cloud, when the tempest came by. Deep sunk in the black moor, all worn and decay'd, Where the floods have been raging the limbs are display'd Of the Pine-tree and Oak sleeping vast in the gloom, The kings of the forest disturb'd in their tomb. E'en now, in the pomp of their prime, I behold The sunlight is on them-in silence they sleep- morn. -Down the pass of Glen-Etive the tempest is borne, And the hill-side is swinging, and roars with a sound In the heart of the forest embosom'd profound. And the mountain of thunder is still as the shore From his eyrie the eagle hath soar'd with a scream, And I wake on the edge of the cliff from my dream; -Where now is the light of thy far-beaming brow? Fleet son of the wilderness! where art thou now? -Again o'er yon crag thou return'st to my sight, Like the horns of the moon from a cloud of the night! Serene on thy travel- —as soul in a dream- light, And the caves, as thou passest, one moment are bright. Through the arch of the rainbow that lies on the rock 'Mid the mist stealing up from the cataract's shock, Thou fling'st thy bold beauty, exulting and free, O'er a pit of grim blackness, that roars like the sea. His voyage is o'er !-As if struck by a spell Fit couch of repose for a pilgrim like thee! Magnificent prison enclosing the free! |