Ariel's Song Song-I danced with Harriet at the fair Leftly. 258 Song-Sweet is the balmy evening Miss Mitford. 259 Song-I like not beauty's roseate Miss Mitford. 260 Song-No, not the eye of tender blue. Thelwall. 260 ELEGANT EXTRACTS. PART V. Odes. ON THE POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS OF THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND: CONSIDERED AS THE SUBJECT OF POETRY. Inscribed to Mr. John Home. HOME! thou return'st from Thames, whose naiads long Have seen thee lingering with a fond delay, ture day, Shall melt, perhaps, to hear thy tragic song. Whom, long endear'd, thou leavest by Lavant's Together let us wish him lasting truth [side; And joy untainted, with his destined bride. A gentleman of the name of Barrow, who introduced Home to Collins. VOL. III. B Go! nor regardless, while these numbers boast My shortlived 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, where 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; While airy minstrels warble jocund notes. How, wing'd with Fate, their elf-shot arrows fly, When the sick ewe her summer food foregoes, Or, stretch'd on earth, the heart-smit heifers lie. Such airy beings awe the' untutor'd swain: Nor thou, though learn'd, 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 mayst thou hear, Where to the pole the Boreal mountains run, Taught by the father, to his listening son, [ear. Strange lays, whose power had charm'd a Spenser's At every pause, before thy mind possess'd, Their matted hair with boughs fantastic crown'd: Whether thou bidd'st the well taught hind repeat The choral dirge that mourns some chieftain brave, When every shrieking maid her bosom beat, 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 pour'd forth their brawny swarms, [arms. And hostile brothers met, to prove each other's 'Tis thine to sing how, framing hideous spells, With their own visions oft astonish'd droop, * A summer hut, built in the high part of the mountains, to tend their flocks in the warm season, when the pasture is fine. |