TO A FRIEND

Who had declared his intention of writing no more Poetry.

DEAR Charles! whilst yet thou wert a babe, I ween

That Genius plunged thee in that wizard fount

Hight Castalie; and (sureties of thy faith)

That Pity and Simplicity stood by,

And promised for thee, that thou shouldst renounce

The world's low cares and lying vanities,

Stedfast and rooted in the heavenly Muse,

And wash'd and sanctified to Poesy.

Yes-thou wert plunged, but with forgetful hand

Held, as by Thetis erst her warrior Son:
And with those recreant unbaptized Heels
Thou'rt flying from thy bounden Ministeries-

So sore it seems and burthensome a task

To weave unwithering flowers! But take thou heed:

For thou art vulnerable, wild-eyed Boy,

And I have arrows *mystically dipt,

Such as may stop thy speed. Is thy Burns dead?
And shall he die unwept, and sink to Earth
"Without the meed of one melodious tear ?”,

Thy Burns, and Nature's own beloved Bard,
Who to the "Illustrious+ of his native Land
"So properly did look for Patronage."

Ghost of Mæcenas! hide thy blushing face!

They snatch'd him from the Sickle and the PloughTo guard Ale-Firkins.

Oh! for shame return!

On a bleak Rock, midway the Aonian mount,
There stands a lone and melancholy tree,
Whose aged branches to the midnight blast
Make solemn music: pluck its darkest bough,
Ere yet the unwholesome Night-dew be exhaled,
And weeping wreath it round thy Poet's Tomb.
Then in the outskirts, where pollutions grow,

* Vide Pind. Olym. ii. 1. 156.

+ Verbatim from Burns's dedication of his Poem to the Nobility and Gentry of the Caledonian Hunt.

0 2

Pick the rank hensbane and the dusky flowers

Of night-shade, or its red and tempting fruit.

These with stopped nostril and glove-guarded hand
Knit in nice intertexture, so to twine

The Illustrious Brow of Scotch Nobility.

1796.

TO A GENTLEMAN.

Composed on the night after his recitation of a Poem on the Growth of an Individual Mind.

FRIEND of the Wise! and Teacher of the Good!

Into my heart have I received that Lay

More than historic, that prophetic Lay

Wherein (high theme by thee first sung aright)
Of the foundations and the building up

Of the Human Spirit, thou hast dared to tell
What may be told, to th' understanding mind
Revealable; and what within the mind
By vital Breathings, like the secret soul

Of vernal growth, oft quickens in the Heart
Thoughts all too deep for words !—

Theme hard as high!

Of smiles spontaneous, and mysterious fears
(The first-born they of Reason and twin-birth)

Of tides obedient to external force,

And currents self-determined, as might seem,

Or by some inner Power; of moments awful,

Now in thy inner life, and now abroad,

When Power stream'd from thee, and thy soul received
The light reflected, as a light bestow'd-

Of Fancies fair, and milder hours of youth,
Hyblean murmurs of Poetic Thought
Industrious in its Joy, in Vales and Glens
Native or outland, Lakes and famous Hills!
Or on the lonely High-road, when the Stars
Were rising; or by secret Mountain-streams,
The Guides and the Companions of thy way!

Of more than Fancy, of the Social Sense Distending wide, and Man belov'd as Man, Where France in all her Towns lay vibrating Even as a Bark becalm'd beneath the Burst

Of Heaven's immediate Thunder, when no cloud
Is visible, or shadow on the Main.

For thou wert there, thine own brows garlanded,

Amid the tremor of a realm aglow,

Amid a mighty nation jubilant,