The hunter's call to Faun and Dryad known;
The oak-crown'd sisters, and their chaste-ey'd

queen,

Satyrs and sylvan boys were seen, Peeping from forth their alleys green; Brown Exercise rejoic'd to hear,

And Sport leapt up, and seiz'd his beechen spear. Last came Joy's ecstatic trial,

He, with viny crown advancing,

First to the lively pipe his hand addrest,
But soon he saw the brisk-awakening viol,

Whose sweet entrancing voice he lov'd the best.
They would have thought, who heard the strain,
They saw in Tempé's vale her native maids,
Amidst the festal-sounding shades,

To some unwearied minstrel dancing,

Q Music, sphere-descended maid,
Friend of pleasure, wisdom's aid,
Why, goddess, why to us denied,
Lay'st thou thy ancient lyre aside?
As in that lov'd Athenian bower,

You learn'd an all-commanding power,
Thy mimic soul, O nymph endear'd,
Can well recall what then it heard.
Where is thy native simple heart,
Devote to virtue, fancy, art?
Arise, as in that elder time,
Warm, energic, chaste, sublime!
Thy wonders, in that godlike age,
Fill thy recording sister's page-
"Tis said, and I believe the tale,
Thy humblest reed could more prevail,
Had more of strength, diviner rage,
Than all which charms this laggard age,
E'en all at once together found
Cæcilia's mingled world of sound-
O, bid our vain endeavors cease,
Revive the just designs of Greece,
Return in all thy simple state!
Confirm the tales her sons relate!

DIRGE IN CYMBELINE,

INSCRIBED TO MR. JOHN HOME.

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 youtht

Whom, long endear'd, thou leav'st by Lavant's side;
Together let us wish him lasting truth

And joy untainted with his destin'd bride.
Go! nor regardless, while these numbers boast
My short-liv'd 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;
"Tis Fancy's land to which thou sett'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 bowls allots;
By night they sip it round the cottage-door,
While airy minstrels warble jocund notes.

SUNG BY GUIDERUS AND ARVIRAGUS OVER FIDELE, There, every herd, by sad experience, knows

SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD.

To fair Fidele's grassy tomb

Soft maids and village hinds shall bring
Each opening sweet, of earliest bloom,
And rifle all the breathing Spring,

No wailing ghost shall dare appear
To vex with shrieks this quiet grove,
But shepherd lads assemble here,

And melting virgins own their love.

No wither'd witch shall here be seen,
No goblins lead their nightly crew;
The female fays shall haunt the green,
And dress thy grave with pearly dew.

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 th' 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.

*How truly did Collins predict Home's tragic powers! † A gentleman of the name of Barrow, who introduced Home to Collins.

E'en yet preserv'd, 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 charm'd a Spenser's

ear.

At every pause, before thy mind possest,

Old Runic bards shall seem to rise around, With uncouth lyres, in many-color❜d vest,

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,

And strew'd 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 pour'd forth their brawny

swarms,

And hostile brothers met, to prove each other's arms.

'Tis thine to sing, how, framing hideous spells,

In Sky's lone isle, the gifted wizard-seer,
Lodg'd 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 astonish'd 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 destin'd glance some fated youth descry,
Who now, perhaps, in lusty vigor 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.

To monarchs dear, some hundred miles astray,
Oft have I seen Fate give the fatal blow!
The seer, in Sky, shriek'd as the blood did flow,
When headless Charles warm on the scaffold lay!
As Boreas threw his young Aurora* forth,

In the first year of the first George's reign,
And battles rag'd in welkin of the North,
They mourn'd in air, fell, fell Rebellion slain!
And as, of late, they joy'd in Preston's fight,

Saw at sad Falkirk all their hopes near crown'd!
They rav'd divining through their second-sight,
Pale, red Culloden, where these hopes were
drown'd!

Illustrious William! Britain's guardian name!
One William sav'd us from a tyrant's stroke;
He, for a sceptre, gain'd heroic fame,

But thou, more glorious, Slavery's chain hast
broke,

To reign a private man, and bow to Freedom's yoke!

By young Aurora, Collins undoubtedly meant the first appearance of the northern lights, which happened about the year 1715; at least, it is most highly probable, from this peculiar circumstance, that no ancient writer whatever has taken any notice of them, nor even any one modern, previous to the above period.

† Second-sight is the term that is used for the divination of the Highlanders.

These, too, thou'lt sing! for well thy magic Muse
Can to the topmost heaven of grandeur soar;
Or stoop to wail the swain that is no more!
Ah, homely swains! your homeward steps ne'er
lose;

Let not dank Willy mislead you to the heath:
Dancing in mirky night, o'er fen and lake,
He glows, to draw you downward to your death,
In his bewitch'd, low, marshy, willow brake!
| What though far off, from some dark dell espied,
His glimmering mazes cheer th' excursive sight,
Yet turn, ye wanderers, turn your steps aside,
Nor trust the guidance of that faithless light;
For watchful, lurking, 'mid th' unrustling reed,
At those mirk hours the wily monster lies,
And listens oft to hear the passing steed,

And frequent round him rolls his sullen eyes,
If chance his savage wrath may some weak wretch
surprise.

Ah, luckless swain, o'er all unblest, indeed!

Whom late bewilder'd in the dank, dark fen,
Far from his flocks, and smoking hamlet, then!
To that sad spot where hums the sedgy weed:
On him, enrag'd, the fiend, in angry mood,

Shall never look with pity's kind concern,
But instant, furious, raise the whelming flood
O'er its drown'd banks, forbidding all return!
Or, if he meditate his wish'd escape,

To some dim hill that seems uprising near,
To his faint eye, the grim and grisly shape,
In all its terrors clad, shall wild appear.
Meantime the watery surge shall round him rise,

Pour'd sudden forth from every swelling source
What now remains but tears and hopeless sighs?
His fear-shook limbs have lost their youthly

force,

And down the waves he floats, a pale and breathless corse!

For him in vain his anxious wife shall wait,

Or wander forth to meet him on his way;
For him in vain, at to-fall of the day,
His babes shall linger at th' unclosing gate:
Ah, ne'er shall he return! Alone, if night

Her travell'd limbs in broken slumbers steep,
With drooping willows drest, his mournful sprite
Then he, perhaps, with moist and watery hand,
Shall visit sad, perchance, her silent sleep:

Shall fondly seem to press her shuddering cheek, And with his blue-swoln face before her stand,

And, shivering cold, these piteous accents speak:
Pursue, dear wife, thy daily toils, pursue,

At dawn or dusk, industrious as before;
Nor e'er of me one helpless thought renew,
While I lie weltering on the osier'd shore,
Drown'd by the Kelpie's wrath, nor e'er shall aid
thee more!"

Unbounded is thy range; with varied skill

Thy Muse may, like those feathery tribes which spring

From their rude rocks, extend her skirting wing Round the moist marge of each cold Hebrid isle,

§ A fiery meteor, called by various names, such as Will with the Wisp, Jack with the Lantern, &c. It hovers in

The late Duke of Cumberland, who defeated the Pre- the air over marshy and fenny places. tender at the battle of Culloden.

The water-fiend.

SUPERSTITIONS OF THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND.

How have I sat, when pip'd the pensive wind,
To hear his harp by British Fairfax strung!
Prevailing poet! whose undoubting mind
Believ'd the magic wonders which he sung!
Hence, at each sound, imagination glows!

There, Shakspeare's self, with ev'ry garland crown'd, The scene of the following Stanzas is supposed to lie on the

* One of the Hebrides is called the Isle of Pigmies; where it is reported that several miniature bones of the human species have been dug up in the ruins of a chapel there.

† Icolmkill, one of the Hebrides, where near sixty of the ancient Scottish, Irish, and Norwegian kings are in terred.

An aquatic bird like a goose, on the eggs of which the inhabitants of St. Kilda, another of the Hebrides, chiefly subsist.

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