English

OF THE GOLDEN AGE

" Recall for me, recall
The time more true and ample;
The world whereon I trample,
How tortuous and small!
Behold, I tire of all.

" Once, gods in jewelled mail
Through greenwood ways invited;
There now the moon is blighted,
And mosses long and pale
On lifeless cedars trail. "

" Child, keep this good unrest:
But give to thine own story
Simplicity with glory;
To greatness dispossessed,
Dominion of thy breast.

THE POET'S CHART

" Where shall I find my light? "

" Turn from another's track:
Whether for gain or lack,
Love but thy natal right.
Cease to follow withal,
Though on thine up-led feet
Flakes of the phosphor fall.
Oracles overheard
Are never again for thee,

FACT AND THE MYSTIC

" G OOD-MORROW , Symbol. " — " Call me not
The name I neither love nor merit. "
— " That grave eternal name inherit,
Thine ever, though all men forgot. "

" Mistake me not; secure and free
From rock to rock my falchion passes:
But Symbols trail through grey morasses
The tattered shows of fairy. "

" My Symbol thou, of phantom blood,
With starlight from thy temples raying;
Along thy floated body playing
Are withering wings, and wings in bud. "

THE SEARCH

" Why dost thou hide from these
Out along the hills halloaing?
Why hast forbade
Thy face, O goddess! to thy votaries? "

" Unasking and unknowing
Is he whom I make glad,
Like Dian grandly going
To the sleeping shepherd-lad.
Men that pursue learn not
To follow is my lot. "

" Happiness, secret one,

Song of the Fifth Bard

The night is drear, but calm the air,
The troublous wind's at rest:
The moon, that lately shone so fair,
Now slumbers in the West —
Thick gathering clouds obstruct her beams,
Her silver lustres hide;
And, faint the passing radiance gleams
Along the mountain's side:
And now the distant wave I hear,
The torrent louder roars,

Song of the Fourth Bard

The night is settled — soft, and fair,
Blue, starry, and serene;
With balmy freshness breathes the air,
No clouds obscure the scene,
They sink behind the snow-capt hill;
The moon, the mountain gains:
Bright drops, from trembling trees distill,
And glitter, on the plains.
The sparkling streams, the rock forsake,
And, gurgling, downwards flow,

Song of the Third Bard .

The wind still sounds along the glens,
The mountains feel the shock;
It whistles thro' the grass that bends
Depending from the rock:
The fir-trees from their station fall,
The turfy hut, is torn;
The thin clouds fly before the squall,
The stars' clear orbits burn.
The meteor, harbinger of death,
Flies, sparkling, thro the air!

Song of the Second Bard .

The winds aloft, the coming blast —
Sweeps o'er the desert plain;
The lurid clouds, the sky o'ercast,
Descend, in pouring rain.
From yon glum mountain shrieks the spright,
His shrieks astound the gale!
The woods, that fringed, the airy height
Fall thundering down the vale.
The windows flap: the torrents roar,
To pass the pilgrim tries,

From the Poems of O SSIAN .

The Story.

SONG of the First Bard .

A LL dark, and doleful is the night!
The clouds on mountains lie;
No star displays its trembling light,
No moon illumes the sky:
I hear the blast, that shakes the wood,
The blast, that distant blows;
I hear the valley's sudden flood —
Hoarse murmur — as it flows.
From yonder tree the grave beside,

Thou glory of the world, our destinies,
Our very faith in heaven, are stayed on thee.
Should verse of mine find favour in thine eyes,
Though often writ in haste, 'twill plead for me:
Grant me a father's right; though fate's decree
Deny me fatherhood, that wrong redress;
If I have failed, may this my comfort be,
And this the generous guerdon of success.