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Lyrical and Miscellaneous Pieces,

IN THE ORDER OF THEIR COMPOSITION OR PUBLICATION.

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In awful ruins Ætna thunders nigh,
And sends in pitchy whirlwinds to the sky
Black clouds of smoke, which, still as they aspire,
From their dark sides there bursts the glowing
fire;

At other times huge balls of fire are toss'd,
That lick the stars, and in the smoke are lost:
Sometimes the mount, with vast convulsions torn,
Emits huge rocks, which instantly are borne
With loud explosions to the starry skies,
The stones made liquid as the huge mass flies,
Then back again with greater weight recoils,
While Etna thundering from the bottom boils.

Loud o'er my head though awful thunders roll,
And vivid lightnings flash from pole to pole,
Yet 'tis thy voice, my God, that bids them fly,
Thy arm directs those lightnings through the sky.
Then let the good thy mighty name revere,
And harden'd sinners thy just vengeance fear.

On the Setting Sun.

1783.

THOSE evening clouds, that setting ray,
And beauteous tints, serve to display

Their great Creator's praise;
Then let the short-lived thing call'd man,
Whose life's comprised within a span,

To Him his homage raise.

We often praise the evening clouds,
And tints, so gay and bold,
But seldom think upon our God,
Who tinged these clouds with gold!'

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Minstrelsy, 1810, were written in 1797, on occasion of the Poet's disappointment in love.

The violet in her green-wood bower,
Where birchen boughs with hazels mingle,
May boast itself the fairest flower
In glen, or copse, or forest dingle.

Though fair her gems of azure hue,
Beneath the dew-drop's weight reclining;
I've seen an eye of lovelier blue,

More sweet through wat'ry lustre shining.

The summer sun that dew shall dry,
Ere yet the day be past its morrow;
Nor longer in my false love's eye
Remain'd the tear of parting sorrow.

To a Lady.

WITH FLOWERS FROM A ROMAN WALL,

1797.

WRITTEN in 1797, on an excursion from Gillsland, in Cumberland. See Life, vol. i. p. 365.

Take these flowers which, purple waving,
On the ruin'd rampart grew,
Where, the sons of freedom braving,
Rome's imperial standards flew.

Warriors from the breach of danger
Pluck no longer laurels there;
They but yield the passing stranger
Wild-flower wreaths for Beauty's hair.

Fragments.

(1.) BOTHWELL CASTLE.

1799.

THE following fragment of a ballad written at Bothwell Castle, in the autumn of 1799, was first printed in the Life of Sir Walter Scott, vol. ii. p. 28.

When fruitful Clydesdale's apple-bowers
Are mellowing in the noon;
When sighs round Pembroke's ruin'd towers
The sultry breath of June;

1 Sir Aylmer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, Edward the First's Governor of Scotland, usually resided at Bothwell Cas

When Clyde, despite his sheltering wood,

Must leave his channel dry;
And vainly o'er the limpid flood
The angler guides his fly;

If chance by Bothwell's lovely braes
A wanderer thou hast been,

Or hid thee from the summer's blaze
In Blantyre's bowers of green,

Full where the copsewood opens wild
Thy pilgrim step hath staid,
Where Bothwell's towers, in ruin piled,
O'erlook the verdant glade;

And many a tale of love and fear
Hath mingled with the scene-
Of Bothwell's banks that bloom'd so dear,
And Bothwell's bonny Jean.

O, if with rugged minstrel lays
Unsated be thy ear,
And thou of deeds of other days
Another tale wilt hear,-

Then all beneath the spreading beech, Flung careless on the lea,

The Gothic muse the tale shall teach Of Bothwell's sisters three.

Wight Wallace stood on Deckmont head,
He blew his bugle round,
Till the wild bull in Cadyow wood
Has started at the sound.

St. George's cross, o'er Bothwell hung,
Was waving far and wide,
And from the lofty turret flung
Its crimson blaze on Clyde;

And rising at the bugle blast
That marked the Scottish foe,
Old England's yeomen muster'd fast,
And bent the Norman bow.

Tall in the midst Sir Aylmer1 rose, Proud Pembroke's Earl was heWhile"

(2.) THE SHEPHERD'S TALE

1799.

"ANOTHER imperfect ballad, in which he had meant to blend together two legends familiar to

tle, the ruins of which attest the magnificence of the invader -ED. 2 Life of Scott, vol. ii. p. 31.

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1 Lourd; i. e. liefer rather.

"Forget not thou thy people's groans
From dark Dunnotter's tower,
Mix'd with the seafowl's shrilly moans,
And ocean's bursting roar!

"O, in fell Clavers' hour of pride,
Even in his mightiest day,

As bold he strides through conquest's tide,
O stretch him on the clay!

"His widow and his little ones,
O may their tower of trust
Remove its strong foundation stones,
And crush them in the dust!"-

"Sweet prayers to me," a voice replied,
"Thrice welcome, guest of mine !"
And glimmering on the cavern side,
A light was seen to shine.

An aged man, in amice brown,
Stood by the wanderer's side,
By powerful charm, a dead man's arm
The torch's light supplied.

From each stiff finger, stretch'd upright,
Arose a ghastly flame,

That waved not in the blast of night
Which through the cavern came.

O, deadly blue was that taper's hue,
That flamed the cavern o'er,

But more deadly blue was the ghastly hue

Of his eyes who the taper bore.

He laid on his head a hand like lead, As heavy, pale, and cold"Vengeance be thine, thou guest of mine,

If thy heart be firm and bold.

"But if faint thy heart, and caitiff fear
Thy recreant sinews know,

The mountain erne thy heart shall tear,
Thy nerves the hooded crow."

The wanderer raised him undismay'd:

"My soul, by dangers steel'd, Is stubborn as my border blade, Which never knew to yield.

"And if thy power can speed the hour

Of vengeance on my foes,

Theirs be the fate, from bridge and gate

To feed the hooded crows."

The Brownie look'd him in the face,
And his color fled with speed-

"I fear me," quoth he, "uneath it will be To match thy word and deed.

stated to have been extracted from a manuscript Chronicle of Nicolaus Thomann, chaplain to Saint Leonard in Weisenhorn, which bears the date 1533; and the song is stated by the author to have been generally sung in the neighborhood at that early period. Thomann, as quoted by the German Editor, seems faithfully to have believed the event he narrates. He quotes tombstones and obituaries to prove the existence of the personages of the ballad, and discovers that there actually died, on the 11th May, 1349, a Lady Von Neuffen, Countess of Marstetten, who was, by birth, of the house Out spoke the noble Moringer, "Of that have thou

III.

Then out and spoke that Lady bright, sore troubled in her cheer,

"Now tell me true, thou noble knight, what order takest thou here;

And who shall lead thy vassal band, and hold thy lordly sway,

And be thy lady's guardian true when thou art far away?"

IV..

of Moringer. This lady he supposes to have been Moringer's daughter, mentioned in the ballad. He quotes the same authority for the death of Berckhold Von Neuffen, in the same year. The editors, on the whole, seem to embrace the opinion of Professor Smith of Ulm, who, from the language of the ballad, ascribes its date to the 15th century.

The legend itself turns on an incident not peculiar to Germany, and which, perhaps, was not unlikely to happen in more instances than one, when crusaders abode long in the Holy Land, and their disconsolate dames received no tidings of their fate. A story, very similar in circumstances, but without the miraculous machinery of Saint Thomas, is told of one of the ancient Lords of Haigh-hall in Lancashire, the patrimonial inheritance of the late Countess of Balcarras; and the particulars are represented on stained glass upon a window in that ancient manor-house.1

THE NOBLE MORINGER.

I.

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O, WILL you hear a knightly tale of old Bohemian day,

He dipp'd his hand in water cold, and bathed his forehead fair.

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1 See Introduction to "The Betrothed," Waverley Novels,

vol. xxxvii

I'll pledge me for no lady's truth beyond the seventh fair day."

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"To watch and ward my castle strong, and to It is the noble Moringer starts up and tears his

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Thy lady and thy heritage another master take.

there be?"

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