VERSES SENT TO A YOUNG LADY, WITH SOME TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ERSE. BEHOLD, fair maid, what Nature could inspire, 5 10 Each maid, with sorrow, saw her conquests rise, And drowned with tears the lightning of her eyes. « But little of the rock was in their mind; They felt the call of nature in their heart.] The same conceit is repeated in Oithona: "My heart is not of that rock; nor my soul careless as that sea." Vol. I. P. 525. The preceding short poem, "The Monument," is indisputably Macpherson's. See Vol. I. p. 196. To meet his generous flame the maid would fly, 25 30 35 40 And lightning arm no more that lovely eye; May the bright legacy successive fall, 45 And thy loved sons and daughters share it all; Thy sons be every virgin's secret care, The last, like thee, set all the world on fire. 50 THE CAVE. WRITTEN IN THE HIGHLANDS. THE wind is up, the field is bare; Some hermit lead me to his cell, With blessed Content has chose to dwell. Behold! it opens to my sight, Dark in the rock; beside the flood; Dry fern around obstructs the light; Reflected in the lake I see The downward mountains and the skies, The flying bird, the waving tree, The goats that on the hills arise. The grey-cloaked herd drives on the cow; A freckled pointer scours the brow; Where Contemplation, lonely fair.] In Macpherson's poem of Death, Come Contemplation, then, my lonely fair! 2 The description of the Cave has been so repeatedly introduced into Ossian, I. 174. II. 234. that it is almost unnecessary to authenticate the poem any farther. Curve o'er the ruin of an oak, The woodman lifts his axe on high, Some rural maid, with apron full, I see the smoky columns roll, And through the chinky hut the beam1. Beside a stone o'ergrown with moss, One bleeding deer is stretched on grass. A lake, at distance, spreads to sight, One tree bends o'er the naked walls, By intervals a fragment falls, As blows the blast along the sky 2. I see the smoky columns roll, And through the chinky hut the beam.] Hunter, vii. 157. At length from his low roof black columns rise, Of pitchy smoke, and gain on evening skies; The turfy hut, &c. Idem viii. 76. Dart through a rocky chink a livid ray. "The columns of smoke pleased mine eye as they rose above my waves.” Vol. I. II. 60 2 Shewing their pale forms through the chinky rocks." 66 By intervals a fragment falls, As blows the blast along the sky.] Death, 71. Highlander, v. 70. A fragment falls with each invading blast. Two rough-spun hinds the pinnace guide, Hangs from the boat th' insidious wood. Beside the flood, beneath the rocks, And seem to laugh and kiss between. The wind is rustling in the oak; They seem to hear the tread of feet; They start, they rise, look round the rock; Again they smile, again they meet. But see! the grey mist from the lake Dark storms the murmuring forests shake, To Damon's homely hut I fly; I see it smoking o'er the plain: When storms are past,-and fair the sky, I'll often seek my cave again. |