IV. Thy daughters bright thy walks adorn! And own ais work indeed divine! V. There, watching high the least alarms, VI. With awe-struck thought, and pitying tears, VII. Wild beats my heart to trace your steps, Ev'n I who sing in rustic lore, VIII. Edina! Scotia's darling seat! All hail thy palaces and tow'rs, Where once beneath a monarch's feet Sat legislation's sov'reign pow'rs! From marking wildly-scatter'd flow'rs, As on the banks of Ayr I stray'd, And singing, lone, the ling'ring hours, I shelter in thy honor'd shade. BOOK V. SONGS AND BALLADS. A VISION. As I stood by yon roofless tower, Where the wa'-flower scents the dewy air, Where the howlet mourns in her ivy bower, And tells the midnight moon her care: The winds were laid, the air was still, The stream, adown its hazelly path, The cauld blue north was streaming forth By heedless chance I turn'd my eyes, Had I a statue been o' stane, His darin look had daunted me : And frae his harp sic strains did flow, As ever met a Briton's ear! He sang wi' joy his former day, He, weeping, wail'd his latter times; The scenery so finely described in this poem taken from nature. The poet is suposed to be musing, by night, on the banks of the Cluden, near the ruins of Lincluden-abbey, of which some account is given in Pennant's Tour and Grose's Antiquities. It is to be regretted that he suppressed the song of Libertie. From the resources of his genius, and the grandeur and solemnity of the preparation, something might have been anticipated, equal, if not superior to the Address of Bruce to his Army, to the song of Death or to the fervid and noble description of the dying soldier in the field of battle. |