of Morven on the scattered crests of Lochlin. The din of arms came to the ear of Fingal. He strikes his shield; his sons throng around; the people pour along the heath. Ryno bounds in joy. Ossian stalks in his arms. Oscar shakes the spear. The eagle wing of Fillan floats on the wind. Dreadful is the clang of death! many are the widows of Lochlin Morven prevails in its strength.

Morn glimmers on the hills: no living foe is seen; but the sleepers are many; grim they lie on Erin. The breeze of ocean lifts their locks; yet they do not awake. The hawks scream above their prey.

Whose yellow locks wave o'er the breast of a chief? Bright as the gold of the stranger, they mingle with the dark hair of his friend. "Tis Calmar: he lies on the bosom of Orla. Theirs is one stream of blood. Fierce is the look of the gloomy Orla. He breathes not; but his eye is still a flame. It glares in death unclosed. His hand is grasped in Calmar's; but Calmar lives! he lives, though low. "Rise," said the king, "rise, son of Mora: 'tis mine to heal the wounds of heroes. Calmar may yet bound on the hills of Morven." "Never more shall Calmar chase the deer of Morven with Orla," said the hero. "What were the chase to me alone? Who should share the spoils of battle with Calmar? Orla is at rest! Rough was thy soul, Orla! yet soft to me as the dew of morn. It glared on others in lightning: to me a silver beam of night. Bear my sword to blue-eyed Mora; let it hang in my empty hall. It is not pure from blood: but it could not save Orla. Lay me with my friend. Raise the song when I am dark!"

They are laid by the stream of Lubar. Four gray stones mark the dwelling of Orla and Calmar. When Swaran was bound, our sails rose on the blue waves. The winds gave our barks to Morven: the bards raised the song.

"What form rises on the roar of clouds? Whose dark ghost gleams on the red streams of tempests? His voice rolls on the thunder. 'Tis Orla, the brown chief of Oithona. He was unmatched in war. Peace to thy soul, Orla! thy fame will not perish. Nor thine, Calmar! Lovely wast thou, son of blue-eyed Mora; but not harmless was thy sword. It hangs in thy cave. The ghosts of Lochlin shriek around its steel. Hear thy praise, Calmar! It dwells on the voice of the mighty. Thy name shakes on the echoes of Morven. Then raise thy fair locks, son of Mora. Spread them on the arch of the rainbow; and smile through the tears of the storm."

L'AMITIÉ EST L'AMOUR SANS AILES.

WHY should my anxious breast repine, Because my youth is fled?

Days of delight may still be mine;

Affection is not dead.

In tracing back the years of youth,
One firm record, one lasting truth,
Celestial consolation brings;
Bear it, ye breezes, to the seat,
Where first my heart responsive beat,-
"Friendship is Love without his wings!"

Through few, but deeply chequer'd years,
What moments have been mine!
Now half obscured by clouds of tears,
Now bright in rays divine;
Howe'er my future doom be cast,
My soul, enraptured with the past,
To one idea fondly clings;
Friendship! that thought is all thine own,
Worth worlds of bliss, that thought alone-
"Friendship is Love without his wings!"

Where yonder yew-trees lightly wave
Their branches on the gale,
Unheeded heaves a simple grave,

Which tells the common tale;
Round this unconscious schoolboys stray,
Till the dull knell of childish play

From yonder studious mansion rings;
But here whene'er my footsteps move,
My silent tears too plainly prove
"Friendship is Love without his wings!"

Oh, Love! before thy glowing shrine
My early vows were paid;

My hopes, my dreams, my heart was thine,
But these are now decay'd;

For thine are pinions like the wind,
No trace of thee remains behind,

Except, alas! thy jealous stings.
Away, away! delusive power,
Thou shalt not haunt my coming hour;
Unless, indeed, without thy wings.

Seat of my youth! thy distant spire
Recalls each scene of joy;

My bosom glows with former fire,-
In mind again a boy.

Thy grove of elms, thy verdant hill.
Thy every path delights me still,

Each flower a double fragrance flings;
Again, as once, in converse gay,
Each dear associate seems to say,
"Friendship is Love without his wings!"

My Lycus! wherefore dost thou weep?
Thy falling tears restrain;
Affection for a time may sleep,

But, oh, 't will wake again.
Think, think, my friend, when next we meet,
Our long-wish'd interview, how sweet!

From this my hope of rapture springs;
While youthful hearts thus fondly swell,
Absence, my friend, can only tell,

"Friendship is Love without his wings!"
In one, and one alone deceived,
Did I my error mourn?
No-from oppressive bonds relieved,
I left the wretch to scorn.

I turn'd to those my childhood knew,
With feelings warm, with bosoms true,
Twined with my heart's according strings;
And till those vital chords shall break,
For none but these my breast shall wake
Friendship, the power deprived of wings!

Ye few! my soul, my life is yours,
My memory and my hope;
Your worth a lasting love insures,

Unfetter'd in its scope;

From smooth deceit and terror sprung
With aspect fair and honey'd tongue,
Let Adulation wait on kings;
With joy elate, by snares beset,
We, we, my friends, can ne'er forget
"Friendship is Love without his wings!"

Fictions and dreams inspire the bard
Who rolls the epic song;

Friendship and truth be my reward-
To me no bays belong;

If laurell'd Fame but dwells with lies,
Me the enchantress ever flies,

Whose heart and not whose fancy sings;
Simple and young, I dare not feign;
Mine be the rude yet heartfelt strain,
"Friendship is Love without his wings!"

December, 1806.
[First published, 1832.]

THE PRAYER OF NATURE.
FATHER of Light! great God of Heaven!
Hear'st thou the accents of despair?
Can guilt like man's be e'er forgiven?
Can vice atone for crimes by prayer?

Father of Light, on thee I call!

Thou seest my soul is dark within;
Thou who canst mark the sparrow's fall,
Avert from me the death of sin.

No shrine I seek, to sects unknown;
Oh, point to me the path of truth!
Thy dread omnipotence I own;

Spare, yet amend, the faults of youth.

Let bigots rear a gloomy fane,

Let superstition hail the pile,

Let priests, to spread their sable reign,
With tales of mystic rites beguile.

Shall man confine his Maker's sway

To Gothic domes of mouldering stone? Thy temple is the face of day;

Earth, ocean, heaven, thy boundless throne.

Shall man condemn his race to hell,
Unless they bend in pompous form?
Tell us that all, for one who fell,
Must perish in the mingling storm?
Shall each pretend to reach the skies,
Yet doom his brother to expire,
Whose soul a different hope supplies,
Or doctrines less severe inspire?

D

Shall these, by creeds they can't expound,
Prepare a fancied bliss or woe?
Shall reptiles, grovelling on the ground,
Their great Creator's purpose know?
Shall those, who live for self alone,
Whose years float on in daily crime-
Shall they by Faith for guilt atone,
And live beyond the bounds of Time?
Father! no prophet's laws I seek,-
Thy laws in Nature's works appear;-
I own myself corrupt and weak,

Yet will I pray, for thou wilt hear!
Thou, who canst guide the wandering star
Through trackless realms of æther's space;
Who calm'st the elemental war,

Whose hand from pole to pole I trace:

Thou, who in wisdom placed me here,
Who, when thou wilt, canst take me hence,
Ah! whilst I tread this earthly sphere,

Extend to me thy wide defence.

To Thee, my God, to thee I call!

Whatever weal or woe betide,
By thy command I rise or fall,
In thy protection I confide.
If, when this dust to dust 's restored,
My soul shall float on airy wing,
How shall thy glorious name adored
Inspire her feeble voice to sing!
But, if this fleeting spirit share

With clay the grave's eternal bed,
While life yet throbs I raise my prayer,
Though doom'd no more to quit the dead.
To Thee I breathe my humble strain,

Grateful for all thy mercies past, And hope, my God, to thee again This erring life may fly at last.

December 29, 1806. [First published, 1830.]

TO EDWARD NOEL LONG, ESQ.

"Nil ego contulerim jocundo sanus amico."-HOR.
DEAR LONG, in this sequester'd scene,
While all around in slumber lie,
The joyous days which ours have been
Come rolling fresh on Fancy's eye;
Thus if amidst the gathering storm,
While clouds the darken'd noon deform,
Yon heaven assumes a varied glow,

I hail the sky's celestial bow,
Which spreads the sign of future peace,
And bids the war of tempests cease.
Ah! though the present brings but pain
I think those days may come again;
Or if, in melancholy mood,
Some lurking envious fear intrude,
To check my bosom's fondest thought,
And interrupt the golden dream,

I crush the fiend with malice fraught,
And still indulge my wonted theme.

Although we ne'er again can trace,
In Granta's vale, the pedant's lore;
Nor through the groves of Ida chase

Our raptured visions as before,
Though Youth has flown on rosy pinion,
And Manhood claims his stern dominion,
Age will not every hope destroy,
But yield some hours of sober joy.

Yes, I will hope that Time's broad wing
Will shed around some dews of spring:
But if his scythe must sweep the flowers
Which bloom among the fairy bowers,
Where smiling Youth delights to dwell,
And hearts with early rapture swell;
If frowning Age, with cold control,
Confines the current of the soul,
Congeals the tear of Pity's eye,
Or checks the sympathetic sigh,
Or hears unmoved misfortune's groan,
And bids me feel for self alone;
Oh! may my bosom never learn

To soothe its wonted heedless flow
Still, still despise the censor stern,
But ne'er forget another's woe.
Yes, as you knew me in the days
O'er which Remembrance yet delays,
Still may I rove, untutor'd, wild,
And even in age at heart a child.

Though now on airy visions borne,
To you my soul is still the same.
Oft has it been my fate to mourn,
And all my former joys are tame.
But, hence! ye hours of sable hue!
Your frowns are gone, my sorrows o'er:
By every bliss my childhood knew,

I'll think upon your shade no more. Thus, when the whirlwind's rage is past, And caves their sullen roar enclose, We heed no more the wintry blast, When lull'd by zephyr to repose.

Full often has my infant Muse

Attuned to love her languid lyre; But now, without a theme to choose, The strains in stolen sighs expire. My youthful nymphs, alas! are flown; E is a wife, and C a mother, And Carolina sighs alone,

And Mary's given to another; And Cora's eye, which roll'd on me, Can now no more my love recall: In truth, dear LONG, 't was time to flee; For Cora's eye will shine on all. And though the sun, with genial rays, His beams alike to all displays, And every lady's eye's a sun, These last should be confined to one. The soul's meridian don't become her, Whose sun displays a general summer! Thus faint is every former flame, And passion's self is now a name.

As, when the ebbing flames are low,
The aid which once improved their light,
And bade them burn with fiercer glow,
Now quenches all their sparks in night;
Thus has it been with passion's fires,

As many a boy and girl remembers,
While all the force of love expires,
Extinguish'd with the dying embers.

But now, dear LONG, 'tis midnight's no on, And clouds obscure the watery moon, Whose beauties I shall not rehearse, Described in every stripling's verse; For why should I the path go o'er, Which every bard has trod before? Yet ere yon silver lamp of night

Has thrice perform'd her stated round, Has thrice retraced her path of light,

And chased away the gloom profound,

I trust that we, my gentle friend,
Shall see her rolling orbit wend
Above the dear-loved peaceful scat,
Which once contain'd our youth's retreat;
And then with those our childhood knew
We'll mingle in the festive crew;
While many a tale of former day
Shall wing the laughing hours away;
And all the flow of souls shall pour
The sacred intellectual shower,
Nor cease till Luna's waning horn
Scarce glimmers through the mist of morn.

TO A LADY.

OH! had my fate been join'd with thine,
As once this pledge appear'd a token,
These follies had not then been mine,
For then my peace had not been broken.
To thee these early faults I owe,

To thee, the wise and old reproving:
They know my sins, but do not know

"T was thine to break the bonds of loving.

For once my soul, like thine, was pure,
And all its rising fires could smother;
But now thy vows no more endure,
Bestow'd by thee upon another;

Perhaps his peace I could destroy,
And spoil the blisses that await him;
Yet let my rival smile in joy,

For thy dear sake I cannot hate him.

Ah! since thy angel form is gone,

My heart no more can rest with any; But what it sought in thee alone, Attempts, alas! to find in many.

Then fare thee well, deceitful maid!

"T were vain and fruitless to regret thee; Nor hope nor memory yield their aid, But pride may teach me to forget thee.

Yet all this giddy waste of years,

This tiresome round of palling pleasures; These varied loves, these matron's fears,

These thoughtless strains to passion's measures

If thou wert mine, had all been hush'd:-
This cheek, now pale from early riot,
With passion's hectic ne'er had flushed,
But bloom'd in calm domestic quiet.
Yes, once the rural scene was sweet,

For Nature seem'd to smile before thee;
And once my breast abhorr'd deceit,-
For then it beat but to adore thee.

But now I seek for other joys:

To think would drive my soul to madness;
In thoughtless throngs and empty noise
I conquer half my bosom's sadness.
Yet, even in these a thought will steal
In spite of every vain endeavour,-
And fiends might pity what I feel,-
To know that thou art lost for ever.

Give me again a faithful few,

In years and feelings still the same, And I will fly the midnight crew,

Where boist'rous joy is but a name.

And woman, lovely woman! thou,
My hope, my comforter, my all!
How cold must be my bosom now,
When e'en thy smiles begin to pall!
Without a sigh would I resign

This busy scene of splendid woe,
To make that calm contentment mine,
Which virtue knows, or seems to know.
Fain would I fly the haunts of men-
I seek to shun, not hate mankind;
My breast requires the sullen glen,
Whose gloom may suit a darken'd mind.
Oh! that to me the wings were given
Which bear the turtle to her nest!
Then would I cleave the vault of heaven,
To flee away, and be at rest.

I WOULD I WERE A CARELESS CHILD.

I WOULD I were a careless child,

Still dwelling in my Highland cave,
Or roaming through the dusky wild,
Or bounding o'er the dark blue wave;
The cumbrous pomp of Saxon pride

Accords not with the freeborn soul,
Which loves the mountain's craggy side,
And seeks the rocks where billows roll.
Fortune! take back these cultured lands,
Take back this name of splendid sound!

I hate the touch of servile hands,

I hate the slaves that cringe around. Place me among the rocks I love,

Which sound to Ocean's wildest roar;

I ask but this-again to rove

Through scenes my youth hath known before.

Few are my years, and yet I feel

The world was ne'er design'd for me:
Ah! why do dark'ning shades conceal
The hour when man must cease to be?
Once I beheld a splendid dream,
A visionary scene of bliss:
Truth!-wherefore did thy hated beam
Awake me to a world like this?

I loved-but those I loved are gone;
Had friends-my early friends are fled:
How cheerless feels the heart alone,
When all its former hopes are dead!
Though gay companions o'er the bowl
Dispel awhile the sense of ill;

Though pleasure stirs the maddening soul,
The heart-the heart-is lonely still.

How dull! to hear the voice of those

Whom rank or chance, whom wealth or power, Have made, though neither friends nor foes, Associates of the festive hour.

WHEN I ROVED A YOUNG HIGHLANDER.

WHEN I roved a young Highlander o'er the dark heath, [snow! And climb'd thy steep summit, oh Morven of To gaze on the torrent that thunder'd beneath, Or the mist of the tempest that gather'd below, Untutor'd by science, a stranger to fear,

And rude as the rocks where my infancy grew, No feeling, save one, to my bosom was dear;

Need I say, my sweet Mary, 't was centred in you?

Yet it could not be love, for I knew not the name,What passion can dwell in the heart of a child? But still I perceive an emotion the same

As I felt, when a boy, on the crag-cover'd wild One image alone on my bosom impress'd,

I loved my bleak regions, nor panted for new; And few were my wants, for my wishes were bless'd; [with you.

And pure were my thoughts, for my soul was

I arose with the dawn; with my dog as my guide,
From mountain to mountain I bounded along;

I breasted the billows of Dee's rushing tide,
And heard at a distance the Highlander's song:
At eve, on my heath-cover'd couch of repose,

No dreams, save of Mary, were spread to my And warm to the skies my devotions arose, [view; For the first of my prayers was a blessing on you.

I left my bleak home, and my visions are gone;
The mountains are vanish'd, my youth is no
As the last of my race, I must wither alone, [more;
And delight but in days I have witness'd before:
Ah! splendour has raised but embitter'd my lot;
More dear were the scenes which my infancy
knew:
[not forgot;
Though my hopes may have fail'd, yet they are
Though cold is my heart, still it lingers with you.

For time and regret will restore you at last: To forget our dissension we both should endeavour, I ask no atonement, but days like the past.

The locks that were sacred to beauty, and you.

But glows not, like Love, with unquenchable Full oft have we wander'd through Ida together, And blest were the scenes of our youth, I allow : In the spring of our life, how serene is the weather! But winter's rude tempests are gathering now.

No more with affection shall memory blending, The wonted delights of our childhood retrace: When pride steels the bosom, the heart is unbending,

And what would be justice appears a disgrace. However, dear George, for I still must esteem you; The few whom I love I can never upbraid: [you, The chance which has lost may in future redeem Repentance will cancel the vow you have made.

I will not complain, and though chill'd is affection,
With me no corroding resentment shall live:
My bosom is calm'd by the simple reflection,
That both may be wrong, and that both should
forgive.
[ence,
You knew that my soul, that my heart, my exist-
If danger demanded, were wholly your own;
You knew me unalter'd by years or by distance,
Devoted to love and to friendship alone.

You knew, but away with the vain retrospection!
The bond of affection no longer endures;
Too late you may droop o'er the fond recollection,
And sigh for the friend who was formerly yours.

FRIEND of my youth! when young we roved,
Like striplings, mutually beloved,

With friendship's purest glow,
The bliss which wing'd those rosy hours
Was such as pleasure seldom showers
On mortals here below

The recollection seems alone
Dearer than all the joys I've known,

When distant far from you:

Though pain, 't is still a pleasing pain,
To trace those days and hours again,
And sigh again, adieu!

My pensive memory lingers o'er
Those scenes to be enjoy'd no more,
Those scenes regretted ever;
The measure of our youth is full,
Life's evening dream is dark and dull,

And we may meet-ah! never!

As when one parent spring supplies
Two streams which from one fountain rise,
Together join'd in vain;

How soon, diverging from their source,
Each, murmuring, seeks another course,
Till mingled in the main!

Our vital streams of weal or woe,
Though near, alas! distinctly flow,
Nor mingle as before:

Now swift or slow, now black or clear,
Till death's unfathom'd gulf appear,

And both shall quit the shore.

Our souls, my friend! which once supplied
One wish, nor breathed a thought beside,
Now flow in different channels:
Disdaining humbler rural sports,
"T is yours to mix in polish'd courts,
And shine in fashion's annals;
"Tis mine to waste on love my time,
Or vent my reveries in rhyme,

Without the aid of reason;
For sense and reason (critics know it)
Have quitted every amorous poet,
Nor left a thought to seize on.

Poor LITTLE! sweet, melodious bard!
Of late esteem'd it monstrous hard
That he, who sang before all,-
He who the lore of love expanded,-
By dire reviewers should be branded
As void of wit and moral.