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THE MINSTREL:

A POEM,

IN FIVE BOOKS.

THE FIRST TWO BOOKS BY DR. BEATTIE; THE THREE LAST

BY THE REV. R. POLWHELE.

ANALYSIS OF THE POEM.

I. First and Second Books.

THE progress of GENIUS in boyism and in youth; as, through the medium of the senses, the fancy is influenced by universal nature, as the memory is stored with knowledge, and as the judgment is improved by education-Its wilder energies.

II. Third Book.

GENIUS, as the fancy and the passions of youth are influenced by external objects, particularly by female beauty-assuming a more decided form in music, painting, and poetry.

-III.-Fourth and Fifth Books.

The sister arts thus called into action;-their operation in the enterprising spirit of the lover and the warriour; and their effect (both in public and private life) viz; to the Minstrel, the acquisition of riches, power, and beauty; and to his country, through his instrumentality, emancipation from tyranny, and restoration to liberty and peace.

NOTE.

The second stanza in Beattie's first book should be re-written. To accommodate the sentiment to the conduct of Edwin when brought into action, we should say, "But the fire of genius will often break through all the obstructions of fortune, where there is scope to expatiate through universal nature."

THE MINSTREL.

BOOK THE THIRD.

Genius [as the fancy and the passions are influenced by external objects, particularly by female beauty,] assuming a more decided form in music, painting, and poetry.

1.

Yes, it is meet to pour afresh the tear*,

Which mourns, in pale regret, the parted friend! Him, who to all the choral sisters dear

Would to my earliest notes assistance lend, And breathing inspiration, kindly bend O'er each weak effort, as I tun'd the rhyme! E'en now, I own that influence, and ascend To heights where Edwin's genius towers sublime: He nurs'd the boy's first bloom, the stripling's vigorous prime.

* It may not, perhaps, be improper for the editor to insert here the closing stanza of Dr. Beattie's second book, in order that the connection of the second and third books may be immediately perceived.

Art thou, my Gregory, for ever fled!

And am I left to unavailing woe!

When fortune's storms assail this weary head,

Where cares long since have shed untimely snow,
Ah, now for comfort whither shall I I go!

No more thy soothing voice my anguish cheers:
Thy placid eyes with smiles no longer glow,

My hopes to cherish, and allay my fears!

'Tis meet that I should mourn: flow forth afresh my tears. VOL. VIII.

E

II.

The eye that kindled, as the sod is cold!
The sod shall wake in blossoms! but no more
Unclos'd, shall that illumin'd eye behold

My Minstrel on the sky-ting'd mountain hoar,
The mossy cairne, the cliff, the surging shore,
As candour would assign the poet's meed;

Or now, (where lorn amidst the Yarrow's roar,
One impulse, one alone, doth Edwin heed)
Shall cordial love look up, and listen to my reed!

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Yet can I fancy, so benign and arch,

That smile, my friend, effus'd upon thy face, Where Edwin, midst his desultory march,

Would pause, then run, and slackening then his pace, From sorrow snatch the muse's pensive grace;

And from his moody melancholy start,

And clasp some lovely form with fond embrace, As if for ever from that form to part,

And rue the vision vain, and sigh forth all the heart.

IV.

Sad exile from his hills, no more the crook,
The nightly pen, the pipe, the tinkling bell,
Shall Edwin hail; nor hurry from the brook
(That his pinebridge o'erthrew with instant swell)
His reckless flock; nor whistling o'er the fell,
Bid honest Tray a bleating lamb chase back;
Nor, tho' his progress drifted snows repel,
And, at each step the frozen current crack,
Pursue the vagrant kid, and trace its fading track.

V.

Sad exile from his hills, where life began,
With his paternal harp had Edwin fled!
By feudal vengeance was dispers'd his clan,

Where his old laird by Glenvon's dagger bled!
His honour'd parents grey had long been dead,
And matted were their graves with moss and fern!
And lo! poor Edwin fain would earn his bread
To his harp trusting -! hard, alas! to earn,
If to endure the scoff must heaven-born genius learn.

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Lone wanderer! all from clan to clan he rov'd;
The heath-roof'd cottage, and the lofty dome
Rang to the madrigals his fathers lov'd;

When, once would the broad blaze of hearths illume,
Amidst high cheer, each hospitable room!

And still sweet hope to faery-land would waft

His spirit far from spleen's cold gathering gloom; And love capricious on the peasant laugh'd,

As now he sobb'd in grief, now hugg'd the golden shaft.

vil.

II. IN unison with Edwin's pensive breast,
The sounds of population died away,
On the pale wood as twilight dropp'd her vest,
And, as to silence breath'd the whispering spray,
And all the rills that slumber'd through the day,
Each gurgling rill distincter yet, drew near,

'Twas where the north star shone with purest ray, Their lapse through shades unseen he seem'd to hear, With some new sentiment, to hope and fancy dear.

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Ah! never never did he hear before,

The purling cadence of a stream so sweet,
Nor ever (but still sighed for something more)
So soft a sound in gentle zephyr meet!
Yet was the simple music incomplete!
Still did he listen to the brooks, the trees,

Sauntering along, their murmurs fond to greet:
And in each liquid fall, in every breeze,

Some sympathy perceived, to mar the loiterer's ease.

IX.

Nor wonder, that the enthusiast listen'd still,
Where from the bosom of an unknown wood,
One evening, sweeter than the pebbly rill,

Or down smooth rocks the fast-receding flood,
Tones he had heard, which in delicious mood
Expired. Ah! not so sweet the zephyr dies!
Then, as bereft of motion had he stood !
Then, as dissolv'd by heavenly symphonies,
Had he effus'd his spirit in one soft waste of sighs!

X.

And now, he slop'd his solitary way,

To seek where sole on earth could pleasure flow: The bird of eve prelusive trill'd her lay,

Where with faint blush he saw the buck-briar blow: And, fading from a cloud with finer glow,

Wav'd o'er the west a crimson radiance clear:

And, hark! (yet, yet, he fear'd, it was not so!) The same celestial music met his ear,

And ceas'd, as if escap'd from a far distant sphere.

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