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SCOTLAND.

Waft, waft, ye winds, His story,
And you, ye waters, roll!
Till, like a sea of glory,

It spreads from pole to pole ;
Till o'er our ransom'd nature,
The Lamb, for sinners slain,
Redeemer! King! Creator!
In bliss returns to reign!

HEBER.

SCOTLAND.

LAND of my fathers, though no mangrove here
O'er thy blue streams her flexile branches rear,
Nor scaly palm her finger'd scions shoot,
Nor luscious guava wave her yellow fruit,
Nor golden apples glimmer from the tree ;

Land of dark heaths and mountains, thou art free!
Free as his lord the peasant treads the plain,
And heaps his harvest on the groaning wain ;
Proud of his laws, tenacious of his right,
And vain of Scotia's old unconquer'd might.
Dear native valleys, long may ye retain
The charter'd freedom of the mountain swain !
Long 'mid your sounding glades, in union sweet,
May rural innocence and beauty meet;
And still be duly heard, at twilight calm,
From every cot, the peasant's chanted psalm!

LEYDEN.

47

THE MELODIES OF MORNING.

BUT who the melodies of morn can tell? The wild brook babbling down the mountain side; The lowing herd; the sheepfold's simple bell; The pipe of early shepherd dim descried In the lone valley; echoing far and wide The clamorous horn along the cliffs above; The hollow murmur of the ocean tide; The hum of bees, the linnet's lay of love, And the full choir that wakes the universal grove.

The cottage curs at early pilgrim bark; Crown'd with her pail the tripping milkmaid sings; The whistling ploughman stalks afield; and hark! Down the rough slope the ponderous waggon rings; Through rustling corn the hare astonish'd springs; Slow tolls the village-clock the drowsy hour; The partridge bursts away on whirring wings; Deep mourns the turtle in sequester'd bower, And shrill lark carols clear from her aërial tour.

BEATTIE.

THE PEACEFUL GARDEN.

A GARDEN lies in solemn peace,

Where shadows fall from cypress-trees;
Within its bounds life's noises cease;

The drowsy here may sleep at ease:

Morn, noon, and night, incessantly
The Gardener toils, whom none can spy!

"A pensive, yet a happy place"

The turf is green, the walks are still;
Here weed and flower with equal grace,
Rest on each little hill;

And, when with life's long road oppress'd,
How sweet is this fair Garden's rest!

Vast are this Garden's planted grounds,-
So it hath been, and so it must;
And countless are its mossy mounds,
Where precious seed lies deep in dust;

When they have ceased more seed to bring,
Then from the mounds the flowers shall spring!

FROM THE GERMAN OF BINDEMANN.

E

THE SNOW-STORM.

As thus the snows arise, and foul, and fierce,
All winter drives along the darken'd air ;
In his own loose revolving fields, the swain
Disaster'd stands; sees other hills ascend,
Of unknown, joyless brow; and other scenes,
Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain :
Nor finds the river, nor the forest, hid
Beneath the formless wild; but wanders on
From hill to dale, still more and more astray,
Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps,

Stung with the thoughts of home; the thoughts of home
Rush on his nerves, and call their vigour forth
In many a vain attempt. How sinks his soul !
What black despair, what horror fills his heart!
When for the dusky spot, which fancy feign'd
His tufted cottage rising through the snow,
He meets the roughness of the middle waste,
Far from the track and bless'd abode of man!
While round him night resistless closes fast,
And every tempest, howling o'er his head,
Renders the savage wilderness more wild.
Then throng the busy shapes into his mind,
Of cover'd pits, unfathomably deep,
A dire descent! beyond the power of frost;
Of faithless bogs; of precipices huge

THE SNOW-STORM.

Smooth'd up with snow; and what is land, unknown,
What water, of the still unfrozen spring,

In the loose marsh or solitary lake,

Where the fresh fountain from the bottom boils.
These check his fearful steps; and down he sinks
Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift
Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death,
Mix'd with the tender anguish nature shoots
Through the wrung bosom of the dying man,
His wife, his children, and his friends unseen.
In vain for him th' officious wife prepares
The fire fair blazing, and the vestment warm;
In vain his little children, peeping out
Into the mingling storm, demand their sire,
With tears of artless innocence. Alas!
Nor wife, nor children, more shall he behold,
Nor friends, nor sacred home. On every nerve
The deadly winter seizes; shuts up sense;
And, o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold,
Lays him along the snows, a stiffen'd corse,
Stretch'd out, and bleaching in the northern blast.

THOMSON.

51

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