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Thence in a summer shower

Steeping the rocks around :—Oh, tell me where
Could majesty and power
Be clothed in forms more beautifully fair?

Yet lovelier, in my view,
The Streamlet, flowing silently serene;
Traced by the brighter hue

And livelier growth it gives,-itself unseen!

It flows through flowery meads,

Gladdening the herds which on its margin browse;
Its quiet beauty feeds

The alders that o'ershade it with their boughs.

Gently it murmurs by

The village churchyard;—its low plaintive tone

A dirge-like melody

For worth and beauty modest as its own.

More gaily now it sweeps

By the small school-house, in the sunshine bright;
And o'er the pebbles leaps,

Like happy hearts by holiday made light.

May not its course express,

In characters which they who run may read,
The charms of gentleness,

Were but its still small voice allowed to plead?

What are the trophies gained

By power alone, with all its noise and strife,
To that meek wreath, unstained,
Won by the charities that gladden life?

Niagara's streams might fail,

And human happiness be undisturbed;

But Egypt would turn pale,

Were her still Nile's o'erflowing bounty curbed!

BARTON.

THE LEVEN.

N Leven's banks, while free to rove,
And tune the rural pipe to love,

I envied not the happiest swain
That ever trod the Arcadian plain.
Pure stream! in whose transparent wave
My youthful limbs I wont to lave,
No torrents stain thy limpid source,
No rocks inpede thy dimpling course,
That sweetly warbles o'er its bed,

With white, round, polished pebbles spread;
While, lightly poised, the scaly brood
In myriads cleave thy crystal flood;—
The springing trout in speckled pride;
The salmon, monarch of the tide;
The ruthless pike, intent on war;
The silver eel, and mottled par.
Devolving from thy parent lake,
A charming maze thy waters make,
By bowers of birch, and groves of pine,
And edges flowered with eglantine.

Still on thy banks, so gaily green,

May numerous herds and flocks be seen;
And lasses chanting o'er the pail,
And shepherds piping in the dale;
And ancient faith that knows no guile,
And industry embrowned with toil;
And hearts resolved, and hand prepared,
The blessings they enjoy to guard!

SMOLLETT.

THE TAY.

HOU Queen of Caledonia's mountain floods, Theme of a thousand gifted bards of yore, Majestic wanderer of the wilds and woods, That lov'st to circle cloud and mountain hoar,

And with the winds to mix thy kindred roar,
Startling the shepherd of the Grampian glen!
Rich are the vales that bound thy eastern shore,
And fair thy upland dales to human ken;

But scarcely are thy springs known to the sons of men.

O that some spirit at the midnight noon Aloft would bear me, middle space, to see Thy thousand branches gleaming to the moon, By shadowy hill, gray rock, and fairy lea; Thy gleesome elves disporting merrily In glimmering circles by the lonely dell, Or by the sacred fount, or haunted tree, Where bowed the saint, as hoary legends tell, And Superstition's last, wild, thrilling visions dwell!

To Fancy's eye the ample scene is spread:
The yellow moonbeam sleeps on hills of dew,
On many an everlasting pyramid

That bathes its gray head in celestial blue.
These o'er thy cradle stand the guardians true,
The eternal bulwark of the land and thee,
And evermore thy lullaby renew

To howling winds and storms that o'er thee flee: All hail, ye battlements of ancient liberty!

There the dark raven builds her dreary home;
The eagle o'er his eyrie raves aloud;

The brindled fox around thee loves to roam,
And ptarmigans, the inmates of the cloud;
And when the Summer flings her dappled shroud
O'er reddening moors, and wilds of softened gray,
The youthful swain, unfashioned, unendowed,
The brocket and the lamb, may round thee play:
These thy first guests alone, thou fair majestic Tay!

But bear me, spirit of the gifted eye,
Far on thy pinions eastward to the main,

O'er gairish glens and straths of every dye,
Where oxen low, and waves the yellow grain;
Where beetling cliffs o'erhang the belted plain,
In spiral forms, fantastic, wild, and riven;
Where swell the woodland choir and maiden's strain,
As forests bend unto the breeze of even,

And in the floods beneath wave o'er a downward heaven.

HOGG,

THE YARROW.

ND this is Yarrow?-this the stream

Of which my fancy cherished,

So faithfully, a waking dream,

An image that hath perished!

O that some minstrel's harp were near,
To utter notes of gladness,
And chase this silence from the air,
That fills my heart with sadness.

Yet why?—a silvery current flows
With uncontrolled meanderings;
Nor have these eyes by greener hills

Been soothed, in all my wanderings.

And, through her depths, Saint Mary's Lake
Is visibly delighted;

For not a feature of those hills

Is in the mirror slighted.

A blue sky bends o'er Yarrow Vale,
Save where that pearly whiteness

Is round the rising sun diffused,
A tender hazy brightness;

Mild dawn of promise! that excludes

All profitless dejection;

Though not unwilling here t' admit
A pensive recollection.

Where was it that the famous Flower
Of Yarrow Vale lay bleeding?

His bed perchance was yon smooth mound
On which the herd is feeding;
And haply from this crystal pool,
Now peaceful as the morning,
The water-wraith ascended thrice,
And gave his doleful warning.

Delicious is the lay that sings
The haunts of happy lovers,
The path that leads them to the grove,

The leafy grove that covers :

And pity sanctifies the verse

That paints, by strength of sorrow,

The unconquerable strength of love;

Bear witness, rueful Yarrow !

But thou that didst appear so fair

To fond imagination,

Dost rival in the light of day

Her delicate creation :

Meek loveliness is round thee spread,

A softness still and holy;

The grace of forest charms decayed,

And pastoral melancholy.

That region left, the vale unfolds

Rich groves of lofty stature,

With Yarrow winding through the pomp

Of cultivated nature;

And, rising from those lofty groves,

Behold a ruin hoary!

The shattered front of Newark's towers,

Renowned in Border story.

Fair scenes for childhood's opening bloom;

For sportive youth to stray in ;

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