Yet still (for I am quite sincere) You've here and there, and now and then Yet once with coward fondness curs'd, My poor weak heart I fear'd would burst At thought of separation : But now despise my feeble chain, And bless the salutary pain That cur'd me of my passion. Impatient of his iron cage, The bird thus spends his little rage, Fond female vanity will say, These long harangues they sure betray This passion so proclaim'd in song, Lovers, like soldiers, Molly, dwell When all the danger's o'er: The chains which once we wore. In kind indulgence to a heart, This sweet revenge I write ; Your fondness or your spite. A frail false maid I lost, but you Which fortune is the worse? Try all love's mighty empire round, A faithful lover's seldom found; Ajil's a common curse. THE TEARS OF SCOTLAND. [SMOLLETT.] 1746. MOURN, hapless Caledonia, mourn The wretched owner sees afar Thy swains are famish'd on the rocks Thy infants perish on the plain. What boots it then, in every clime Through the wide-spreading waste of time, Thy martial glory, crown'd with praise, The rural pipe and merry lay No more shall cheer the happy day: No social scenes of gay delight Beguile the dreary winter night: No strains, but those of sorrow flow, And nought be heard but sounds of wo, While the pale phantoms of the slain Glide nightly o'er the silent plain. O baneful cause! oh, fatal morn, Accurs'd to ages yet unborn! The naked and forlorn must feel The pious mother, doom'd to death, Forsaken wanders o'er the heath, The bleak wind whistles round her head, While the warm blood bedews my veins, And unimpair'd remembrance reigns, Resentment of my country's fate, Within my filial breast shall beat; And, spite of her insulting foe, My sympathising verse shall flow: Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn Thy banish'd peace, thy laurels torn.' ODE TO LEVEN WATER. [IBID.] ON Leven's banks, while free to rove, |