Why do I see that generous bosom gored?
Why bathed in blood the visionary sword?

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What rudeness ruffled that disordered hair?

Why, blameless shade, that mournful aspect wear?
For sure such virtues must rewarded be,

And Heaven itself approve of Wolfe and thee.

Yes, thou art blessed above the rolling sphere;

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'Tis for myself, not thee, I shed the tear.

Where shall I now such blameless friendship find,
Thou last best comfort of a drooping mind?
To whom the pressures of my soul impart,
Transfer my sorrows, and divide my heart?
Remote is he who ruled my breast before,
And he shall sooth me into peace no more.
Men born to grief, an unrelenting kind,
Of breasts discordant, and of various mind,
Scarce, 'midst of thousands, find a single friend;
If Heaven at length the precious blessing send,

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65

A sudden death recalls him from below;

A moment's bliss is paid with years of woe.

What boots the rising sigh? in vain we weep,

We, too, like him, anon must fall asleep ;

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Life, and its sorrows too, shall soon be o'er,

And the heart heave with bursting sighs no more;

Death shed oblivious rest on every head,

And one dull silence reign o'er all the dead.

THE

EARL MARISCHAL'S WELCOME

ΤΟ

HIS NATIVE COUNTRY.

An Ode 1, attempted in the manner of Pindar.

"TWAS when the full-eared harvest bow'd

Beneath the merry reaper's hand;

When here the plenteous sheafs were strew'd,

And there the corns nod o'er the land;

When on each side the loaden'd ground,

Breathing her ripen'd scents, the jovial season crown'd;
The villagers, all on the green,

The arrival of their lord attend;

The blythsome shepherds haste to join,
And whistling from the hills descend;

10

Nor orphan nor lone widow mourns;
Even hopeless lovers lose their pains;

• Inserted with the initials (J. M.), in the Scots Magazine for September 1760; reprinted with the name in Blacklock's Collection, Vol. II. p. 170.

25

Then from the grass Melanthus rose,

The arbitrator of the plains,

And silent all stood fixed to hear

The Tityrus of Mernia's swains;

For with the Muse's fire his bosom glow'd,
And easy from his lips the numbers flow'd.

"Now the wished-for day is come,
Our lord reviews his native home;
Now clear and strong ideas rise,
And wrap my soul in extasies:
Methinks I see that ruddy morn,
When, waken'd by the hunter's horn,
I rose, and, by yon mountain's side,
Saw Tyrcis and Achates ride;
While, floating by yon craggy brow,
The slowly-scattering mist withdrew;
I saw the roe-buck cross yon plain,
Yon heathy steep I saw him gain;
The hunters still fly o'er the ground,
Their shouts the distant hills resound;
Dunnotyr's towers resound the peal
That echoes o'er the hill and dale.

At length, what time the ploughman leads
Home from the field his
weary steeds,

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45

And the early kine rise from their dewy seat."

Stretch'd forth his hand, and thus resum'd the strain:

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Our brave forefathers wore,

In Kenneth's wars, and Bruce's days,

And when the Romans fled their dreadful wrath of yore. 75

O'er every hill, o'er every dale,
All by the winding banks of Tay,
Resounds the hunter's chearful peal,
Their armour glittering to the day."

Big with his joys of youth the old man stood;

Dunnotyr's ruin'd towers then caught his eye; He stopp'd, and hung his head in pensive mood, And from his bosom burst the unbidden sigh. Then turning, with a warrior look,

Shaking his hoary curls, the old man spoke :

"Virtue, O Fortune! scorns thy power, Thou can'st not bind her for an hour;

Virtue shall ever shine;

And endless praise, her glorious dower,

His sword with thine, and backs thy cause; Yes, thou art doubly safe, thy cause is just.

"With dread the Turks have oft beheld
His sword wide waving o'er the field;
As oft these sons of carnage fled
O'er mountains of their kindred dead.

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