The fir-topt mount, where browze the bounding deer,
The lake adjoining, stretching smooth and clear;
The long glass hot-house, basking in the rays,
Where nameless blossoms swell beneath the blaze;
Where India's clime in full perfection glows,
And fruits and flowers o'ercharge the bending boughs.
These, and unnumbered beauties charm his sight,
And oft he turns and gazes with delight.
Ye lonely walks, now sinking from the sight,
Now rising easy to the distant height,
Where o'er my head the bending branches close,
And hang a solemn gloom-sedate repose,
Now generous opening, welcomes in the day,
While o'er the road the shadowy branches play.
Hail! happy spots of quiet and of peace,
Dear favourite scenes, where all my sorrows cease,
Where calm Retirement reigns in sober mood,
Lulled by the songsters of the neighbouring wood.
Here oft beneath the shade, I lonely stray,
When morning opes, or evening shuts the day;
Or when, more black than night, Fate stern appears,
With all his train of pale despairing fears.
The winding walks, the solitary wood,
The uncouth grotto, melancholy rude;
My refuge these the attending Muse to call,
Or in Pope's lofty page to lose them all.
But what, my friend, would all these scenes avail,
The walks meandering, or the stretching dale,
The wood-clad mountain, or the sounding streams,
The harvest waving in the glowing beams;
What all the pomp of nature or of art,
If Heaven had hardened the proud owner's heart?
And is it so, ye ask? Ah, no, my friend,
Far other motives swell his generous mind.
He lives, he reigns, beloved in every soul;
Our wants and hardships through his bosom roll.
Those he alleviates with a parent care,
And these by him spread forth, disperse in air.
When late pale Trade, wrapt up in yellow weeds,
With languid looks, seemed to forsake our meads,
When, for her sons, stern Paisley sole confined
The web to finish, or the woof to wind,
Through all the village desolation reigned,
And deep distress each cheek with sorrow stained;
Oh! may these eyes ne'er gaze on such a scene,
Ne'er may I listen to such woes again.
Here mourned a father for his labour gone,
Surveyed his babes and heaved the bitter groan;
The weeping maid, tho' blest with blooming charms,
Saw now her lover forced to quit her arms,
While silence hung, and melancholy gloom,
Through each lone shop, and o'er each useless loom.
Our mis'ries reached his ear, his manly breast
Felt for our woes, nor e'en the tear supprest.
He bade us hope, nor were our hopes in vain;
Soon welcome news surprised each grateful swain.
Hope smiled propitious-every shop resumed
New heart and soul, though late to ruin doomed.
The sounding shuttle sweeps from side to side,
Swift o'er the beam the finished flow'rings glide;
Songs soothe our toil, and pour the grateful flame,
And ev'ry tongue reveres the patriot's name.
From scenes like these, let Pride disdainful turn,
And Malice hiss, and squinting Envy burn;
Yet, when entombed, the worthy patriot lies,
And his rapt soul has gained her native skies,
Such deeds as these shall aggrandize his name,
While they lie buried in eternal shame.
From Clyde's fair river to the western shore,
Where smoky Saltcoats braves the surge's roar,
A range of hills extend, from whose each side,
Unnumbered streams in headlong fury ride,
Aloft in air their big blue backs are lost,
Their distant shadows blackening all the coast;
High o'er their proudest peaks oft hid in showers,
The imperious Misty-Lawa superior towers;
Spiry at top, o'erclad with purpling heath,
Wide he looks round o'er Scotia's plains beneath.
The Atlantic main that opens on the west,
Spotted with isles that crowd its liquid breast;
Hills heaped on hills support the northern sky,
Far to the east the Ochills hugely lie.
How vast around the boundless prospect spreads,
Blue rivers rolling through their winding beds;
Black waving woods, fields glowing on the eye,
And hills whose summits hide them in the sky.
Still farther would I gaze with rapture blest,
But bending clouds hang down and hide the rest.
Descending from the hill's o'erhanging head,
Bare moors below uncomfortably spread.
Here stray the hardy sheep in scattered flocks,
Nibbling through furze and grim projecting rocks,
Strangers to shelter from bleak Winter's form,
His loudest blasts they brave and bitterest storm,
By human hands untouched save when the swain,
Drives to the crowded hut the bleeting train;
Shears off the matted fleece with gleeful haste,
And sends them naked to the lonely waste.
Here as the shepherd ranges o'er the heath,
The speckled adder sweeps across the path,
Or lies collected in the sun's bright beams,
Or wriggles forward to the distant streams;
But sudden caught in vain the felon flies,
He feels the scourging crook and stretched and gaping dies.
a A high mountain of that name, situated within a few miles of Lochwinnoch, commanding a beautiful and extensive view of the surrounding country.
Near the bleak border of these lonely moors,
Where o'er the brook the mossy margin lowers,
'Midst clust'ring trees and sweet surrounding dells,
In rural cot a rustic poet dwells;
Unknown to him the dull elab'rate rules,
And mazy doctrines of pedantic schools:
Yet genius warms his breast with noble fire,
And the rapt Muse seems eager to inspire.
High on the herby hill while morning smiles,
And shoots her beams along the distant isles,
Cheerful he sits, and gazing o'er the plain,
In native language pours his jocund strain;
"How bonny morning speels the eastlin lift,
And waukens lads and lasses to their thrift,
Gars lavrocks sing and canty lamies loup,
And me mysel' croon cheery on my doup;"
Or oft rejoiced he sings how best to rear
Big swelling roots, the peasant's homely cheer,
When drowned with milk amid the pot they're prest,
Or mealy, bursting fill his brawny fist;
How the deep bog or wat'ry marsh to drain,
And bid bare hillocks groan with bending grain.a
These are the themes that oft engage his Muse,
Swell his full breast and stretch his wid'ning views;
While wond'ring shepherds as they round him throng,
Survey the hoary bard and bless the instructing song.
When harvest's o'er, his last, his sweetest toil,
And every barn contains the rustling spoil;
When winter growls along the frozen lakes,
And whit'ning snows descend in silent flakes;
When all without is drear, and keen blown frost
Has each hard foot-step on the road embost,
Led by the pale-faced moon o'er drifted plains,
From many a cottage trudge the neighb'ring swains,
a Alluding to his speech on farming.-Vide Semple's History
of Renfrewshire, p. 116.
To hear his tale, and round his glowing hearth,
To pass the night in innocence and mirth.
Retired from towns, from scenes of guilt and strife,
How blest poor shepherd's your untroubled life!
No deep black schemes employ your jocund hour,
Like birds of prey each other to devour.
The milky flocks throng nibbling o'er the steep,
The tinkling brooks that sweetly lull to sleep.
The warbling bank, the dewy morn's pale light,
While mists rise slowly from each neighb'ring height,
The lark's shrill song, the blackbird's wilder airs,
These are your pleasures, these your happy cares.
Down from this spreading moor with gathering
force,
Impetuous Calder leaves his marshy source,
Through deep sunk vales and rude resisting rocks,
His furious current raves and thundering smokes,
While swift he pours along in foamy pride,
Huge massive bulwarks rise on either side;
Rocks grimly lowering o'er the darkened stream,
Hollow'd with caves where ne'er peep'd Phoebus' beam.
Here in red clusters hang the juicy row'n;
There sun-burnt nuts depress the hazel down;
High on yon rock the lucious berries swarm,
Yet mock the efforts of the straining arm;
So when some poet wand'ring through the street,
If chance a sav'ry smell his nostrils meet,
Sudden he stops-looks round on some cook's stall,
And eager gazes-but a look's his all.
Wild scenes, my friend, now rush upon my sight,
Of woods hung branching from the impending height;
Of rude romantic cliffs, where high in air,
The fleet winged hawk protects her clam'rous care;
Of Calder winding through the deep sunk vale,
'Midst trees embosomed from the ruffling gale,
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