The Book of Scottish Poems: Ancient and Modern

His simple question stole; as into truth, And serious deeds, he smiled the laughing race;

Taught moral happy life, whate'er can bless,

Through all the winding harmony of sound:

In it the power of Eloquence, at large, Breathed the persuasive or pathetic soul; Stilled by degrees the democratic storm,

Or grace mankind; and what he taught he Or bade it threatening rise, and tyrants

was.

Compounded high, though plain, his doctrine broke

shook,

Flushed at the head of their victorious troops.

In different schools. The bold poetic In it the Muse, her fury never quenched, phrase By mean unyielding phrase, or jarring sound,

Of figured Plato, Xenophon's pure strain, Like the clear brook that steals along the

vale ;

Dissecting truth, the Stagyrite's keen eye;
The exalted Stoic pride; the Cynic sneer;
The slow-consenting Academic doubt;
And, joining bliss to virtue, the glad ease
Of Epicurus, seldom understood.
They, ever candid, reason still opposed
To reason; and, since virtue was their aim,
Each by sure practice tried to prove his
way

The best. Then stood untouched the solid base

Of liberty, the liberty of mind:

For systems yet, and soul-enslaving creeds, Slept with the monsters of succeeding times.

Her unconfined divinity displayed; And, still harmonious, formed it to her will:

Or soft depressed it to the shepherd's moan,

Or raised it swelling to the tongue of Gods. Heroic song was thine; the Fountainbard,

Whence each poetic stream derives its

course.

Thine the dread moral scene, thy chief delight!

Where idle Fancy durst not mix her voice, When Reason spoke august; the fervent

heart,

Or plained, or stormed; and in the impassioned man,

From priestly darkness sprung th' enlight- Concealing art with art, the poet sunk,

ening arts

Of fire, and sword, and rage, and horrid

names.

This potent school of manners, but when left

Toloose neglect, a land corrupting plague,

O Greece! thou sapient nurse of finer Was not unworthy deemed of public care,

torch

But that deep-searching voice, and artful That cruel-thoughted War the impatient hand, To which respondent shakes the varied Dashed to the ground; and, rather than soul.

Thy fair ideas, thy delightful forms,
By love imagined, by the graces touched,
The boast of well-pleased Nature! Sculp-
ture seized,

And bade them ever smile in Parian stone.
Selecting Beauty's choice, and that again
Exalting, blending in a perfect whole,
Thy workmen left even Nature's self be-
hind.

From those far different, whose prolific
hand

Peoples a nation; they for years on years,
By the cool touches of judicious toil,
Their rapid genius curbing, poured it all
Through the live features of one breathing

stone.

There, beaming full, it shone ; expressing
Gods:

Jove's awful brow, Apollo's air divine,
The fierce atrocious frown of sinewed
Mars,

Or the sly graces of the Cyprian queen,
Minutely perfect all! Each dimple sunk,
And every muscle swelled, as nature taught.
In tresses, braided gay, the marble waved;
Flowed in loose robes, or thin transparent

veils ;

Sprung into motion; softened into flesh;
Was fired to passion, or refined to soul.

Nor less thy Pencil with creative touch, Shed mimic life, when all thy brightest dames,

Assembled, Zeuxis in his Helen mixed.
And when Apelles, who peculiar knew
To give a grace that more than mortal
smiled,

The soul of beauty! called the queen of
love,

Fresh from the billows, blushing orient charms.

Even such inchantment then thy Pencil

poured,

destroy

The patriot picture, let the city 'scape.

THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE. [Specimens.]

O mortal man! who livest here by toil,
Do not complain of this thy hard estate;
That like an emmet thou must ever

moil,

Is a sad sentence of an ancient date;
And, certes, there is for it reason great;
For, though sometimes it makes thee

weep and wail,

And curse thy star, and early drudge and late,

Withouten that would come a heavier

bale,

Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale.

II.

In lowly dale, fast by a river's side,
With woody hill o'er hill encompassed

round,

A most enchanting wizard did abide,
Than whom a fiend more fell is nowhere

found.

It was, I ween, a lovely spot of ground:
And there a season atween June and

May,

Half pranked with spring, with summer half imbrowned,

A listless climate made, where, sooth to

say,

No living wight could work, ne cared even for play.

III.

Was nought around but images of rest: Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between ;

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