'Tis he refines its fountain-springs,
The nobler passions of the soul.

It is the muse that consecrates
The native banner of the brave,
Unfurling at the trumpet's breath,
Rose, thistle, harp; 'tis she elates
To sweep the field or ride the wave,
A sunburst in the storm of death.

And thou, young hero, when thy pall
Is crossed with mournful sword and plume,
When public grief begins to fade,

And only tears of kindred fall,

Who but the Bard shall dress thy tomb,
And greet with fame thy gallant shade?

Such was the soldier-BURNS, forgive
That sorrows of mine own intrude
In strains to thy great memory due.
In verse like thine, oh! could he live,
The friend I mourned-the brave, the good-
Edward that died at Waterloo !1

Farewell, high chief of Scottish song!

That couldst alternately impart

Wisdom and rapture in thy page,

And brand each vice with satire strong,
Whose lines are mottoes of the heart,
Whose truths electrify the sage.

Farewell! and ne'er may Envy dare
To wring one baleful poison drop
From the crushed laurels of thy bust :
But while the lark sings sweet in air,
Still may the grateful pilgrim stop,

To bless the spot that holds thy dust.

1 Major Edward Hodge, of the 7th Hussars, who fell at the head of his squadron in the attack of the Polish Lancers.

THE SOLDIER'S DREAM.

OUR

UR bugles sang truce-for the night-cloud had lowered,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky;

And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered,
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.

When reposing that night on my pallet of straw,
By the wolf-scaring faggot that guarded the slain;
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw,
And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again.

Methought from the battle-field's dreadful array,
Far, far I had roamed on a desolate track:
'Twas Autumn,—and sunshine arose on the way
To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back.

I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft

In life's morning march, when my bosom was young; I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft,

And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung

Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore,
From my home and my weeping friends never to part;
My little ones kissed me a thousand times o'er,

And my wife sobbed aloud in her fulness of heart

Stay, stay with us,-rest, thou art weary and worn ;
And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay ;-
But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.

LINES

WRITTEN ON VISITING A SCENE IN ARGYLESHIRE

T the silence of twilight's contemplative hour,

AT

I have mused in a sorrowful mood,

On the wind-shaken weeds that embosom the bower,
Where the home of my forefathers stood.1
All ruined and wild is their roofless abode,

And lonely the dark raven's sheltering tree:
And travelled by few is the grass-covered road,
Where the hunter of deer and the warrior trode
To his hills that encircle the sea.

Yet wandering, I found on my ruinous walk,
By the dial-stone agèd and green,

One rose of the wilderness left on its stalk,
To mark where a garden had been.

Like a brotherless hermit, the last of its race,
All wild in the silence of nature, it drew,

From each wandering sun-beam, a lonely embrace,
For the night-weed and thorn overshadowed the place,
Where the flower of my forefathers grew.

Sweet bud of the wilderness! emblem of all
That remains in this desolate heart!
The fabric of bliss to its centre may fall,

But patience shall never depart!

Though the wilds of enchantment, all vernal and bright,
In the days of delusion by fancy combined

With the vanishing phantoms of love and delight,
Abandon my soul, like a dream of the night,
And leave but a desert behind.

1 Kirnan

ON VISITING A SCENE IN ARGYLESHIRE. 183

Be hushed, my dark spirit! for wisdom condemns

When the faint and the feeble deplore ;

Be strong as the rock of the ocean that stems

A thousand wild waves on the shore!

Through the perils of chance, and the scowl of disdain,
May thy front be unaltered, thy courage elate!
Yea! even the name I have worshipped in vain
Shall awake not the sigh of remembrance again :
To bear is to conquer our fate.

SPANISH PATRIOT'S SONG.

OW rings each sparkling Spanish brand,

How

There's music in its rattle;

And gay, as for a saraband,

We gird us for the battle.
Follow, follow!

To the glorious revelry,

When the sabres bristle,
And the death-shots whistle.

Of rights for which our swords outspring,
Shall Angoulême bereave us?
We've plucked a bird of nobler wing-
The eagle could not brave us.
Follow, follow!

Shake the Spanish blade, and sing-
France shall ne'er enslave us :
Tyrants shall not brave us.

Shall yonder rag, the Bourbon's flag,
White emblem of his liver,

For Spain the proud be Freedom's shroud?
Oh, never, never, never.

Follow, follow!

Follow to the fight, and sing

Liberty for ever:

Ever, ever, ever.

Thrice welcome hero of the hilt,
We laugh to see his standard;
Here let his miscreant blood be spilt
Where braver men's was squandered.