Whose numbers stealing through thy darkening vale,

May not unseemly with its stillness suit ;

As, musing slow, I hail

Thy genial loved return!

For when thy folding-star arising shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
The fragrant Hours and Elves
Who slept in flowers the day,

And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge,
And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still,

The pensive Pleasures sweet,

Prepare thy shadowy car;

Then lead, calm votaress, where some sheety lake
Cheers the lone heath, or some time-hallowed pile,
Or upland fallows grey

Reflect its last cool gleam.

But when chill blustering winds or driving rain
Forbid my willing feet, be mine the hut,

That from the mountain's side

Views wilds and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires ;
And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all
Thy dewy fingers draw
The gradual dusky veil.

While spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont,
And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve;

While Summer loves to sport
Beneath thy lingering light;

While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves;
Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air,
Affrights thy shrinking train,

And rudely rends thy robes;

So long, sure-found beneath the sylvan shed
Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, rose-lipped Health,
Thy gentlest influence own,

And hymn thy favourite name!

124

ON THE POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS OF
THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND.

COLLINS.

Written from Chichester in the winter of 1749, and addressed to Home, the author of Douglas," whose acquaintance he had made at Winchester in the autumn of that year. It was first printed in 1780.

HOME, thou return'st from Thames, whose Naiads long

Have seen thee lingering with a fond delay,

'Mid those soft friends, whose hearts, some future day, Shall melt, perhaps, to hear thy tragic song.

Go, not unmindful of that cordial youth
Whom, long endeared, thou leavest by Lavant's side;
Together let us wish him lasting truth,

And joy untainted with his destined bride.
Go! nor regardless, while these numbers boast
My short-lived bliss, forget my social name;
But think, far off, how, on the southern coast,
I met thy friendship with an equal flame.
Fresh to that soil thou turn'st, whose every vale
Shall prompt the poet, and his song demand :
To thee thy copious subjects ne'er shall fail;
Thou need'st but take thy pencil to thy hand,
And paint what all believe, who own thy genial land.

There must thou wake perforce thy Doric quill;
'Tis Fancy's land to which thou set'st thy feet;
Where still, 'tis said, the fairy people meet,
Beneath each birken shade, on mead or hill.
There each trim lass, that skims the milky store,
To the swart tribes their creamy bowl allots;

By night they sip it round the cottage door.
While airy minstrels warble jocund notes.
There, every herd, by sad experience, knows

How, winged with fate, their elf-shot arrows fly, When the sick ewe her summer food forgoes,

Or, stretched on earth, the heart-smit heifers lie. Such airy beings awe the untutored swain: Nor thou, though learned, his homelier thoughts neglect: Let thy sweet Muse the rural faith sustain; These are the themes of simple, sure effect,

That add new conquests to her boundless reign, And fill, with double force, her heart-commanding strain.

E'en yet preserved, how often may'st thou hear,
Where to the pole the Boreal mountains run,
Taught by the father to his listening son,
Strange lays, whose power had charmed a Spenser's ear.
At every pause, before thy mind possest,
Old Runic bards shall seem to rise around,
With uncouth lyres, in many-coloured vest,

Their matted hair with boughs fantastic crowned:

Whether thou bid'st the well-taught hind repeat

The choral dirge, that mourns some chieftain brave, When every shrieking maid her bosom beat,

And strewed with choicest herbs his scented grave; Or whether, sitting in the shepherd's shiel,

Thou hear'st some sounding tale of war's alarms: When at the bugle's call, with fire and steel,

The sturdy clans poured forth their brawny swarms, And hostile brothers met, to prove each other's arms.

'Tis thine to sing, how, framing hideous spells,
In Skye's lone isle, the gifted wizard seer
Lodged in the wintry cave with "Fate's fell spear,"
Or in the depth of Uist's dark forest dwells:
How they, whose sight such dreary dreams engross,
With their own vision oft astonished droop,

When o'er the watery strath or quaggy moss
They see the gliding ghosts unbodied troop.
Or, if in sports, or on the festive green,

Their "destined" glance some fated youth descry,
Who now, perhaps, in lusty vigour seen,
And rosy health, shall soon lamented die.
For them the viewless forms of air obey,
Their bidding heed, and at their beck repair;
They know what spirit brews the stormful day,
And heartless, oft like moody Madness, stare
To see the phantom train their secret work prepare.