Descending, sumless orders and degrees;
Th' unsounded depth, which mortals dare not try,
Of God's perfections; how these heavens first sprung
From unprolific night; how mov'd and rul'd
In number, weight, and measure; what hid laws,
Inexplicable, guide the moral world.

Active as flame, with prompt obedience all
The will Heaven fulfil some his fierce wrath
Bear through the nations, pestilence and war:
His copious goodness some, life, light, and bliss,
To thousands. Some the fate of empires rule,
Commission'd, sheltering with their guardian wings
The pious monarch, and the legal throne.

Nor is the sovereign, nor th' illustrious great,
Alone their care. To every lessening rank
Of worth propitious, these blest minds embrace
With universal love the just and good,
Wherever found; unpriz'd, perhaps unknown,
Deprest by fortune, and with hate pursued,
Or insult from the proud oppressor's brow.
Yet dear to Heaven, and meriting the watch
Of angels o'er his unambitious walk,

At morn or eve, when Nature's fairest face,
Calmly magnificent, inspires the soul
With virtuous raptures, prompting to forsake
The sin-born vanities, and low pursuits,
That busy human kind; to view their ways
With pity; to repay, for numerous wrongs,
Meekness and charity. Or, rais'd aloft,
Fir'd with ethereal ardour, to survey
The circuit of creation, all these suns
With all their worlds: and still from height to
By things created rising, last ascend.

[height,

To that First Cause, who made, who governs all,
Fountain of being, self-existent power,
All-wise, all-good, who from eternal age
Endures, and fills th' immensity of space;
That infinite diffusion, where the mind
Conceives no limits; undistinguish'd void,
Invariable, where no land-marks are,
No paths to guide Imagination's flight.

THE following poem was originally intended for the stage, and planned out, several years ago, into a regular tragedy. But the author found it necessary to change his first design, and to give his work the form it now appears in; for reasons with which it might be impertinent to trouble the public: though, to a man who thinks and feels in a certain manner, those reasons were invincibly strong.

ago, under the title of a Voyage to St. Kilda. The author, who had himself been upon the spot, describes at length the situation, extent, and produce of that solitary island; sketches out the natural history of the birds of season that transmigrate thither annually, and relates the singular customs that still prevailed among the inhabitants: a race of people then the most uncorrupted in their manners, and therefore the least unhappy in their lives, of any, perhaps, on the face of the whole Earth. To whom might have been applied what an ancient historian says of certain barbarous nations, when he compares them with their more civilized neighbours plus valuit apud hos ignorantia vitiorum, quam apud Græcos omnia philosophorum præcepta.

They live together, as in the greatest simplicity of heart, so in the most inviolable harmony and union of sentiments. They have neither silver nor gold; but barter among themselves for the few necessaries they may reciprocally want. To strangers they are extremely hospitable, and no less charitable to their own poor; for whose relief each family in the island contributes its share monthly, and at every festival sends them besides a portion of mutton or beef. Both sexes have a genius to poetry; and compose not only songs, but pieces of a more elevated turn, in their own language, which is very emphatical. One of those islanders, having been prevailed with to visit the greatest trading town in North Britain, was infinitely astonished at the length of the voyage, and at the mighty kingdoms, for such he reckoned the larger isles, by which they sailed. He would not venture himself into the streets of that city without being led by the hand. At sight of the great church, he owned that it was indeed a lofty rock; but insisted that, in his native country of St. Kilda, there were others still higher. However the caverns formed in it, so he named the pillars and arches on which it is raised, were hollowed, he said, more commodiously than any he had ever seen there. At the shake occasioned in the steeple, and the horrible din that sounded in his ears upon tolling out the great bells, he appeared under the utmost consternation, believing the frame of nature was falling to pieces about him, He thought the persons who wore masks, not distinguishing whether they were men or women, had been guilty of some ill thing, for which they did not dare to show their faces. The beauty and stateliness of the trees which he saw then for the first time, as in his own island there grows not a shrub, equally surprised and delighted him but he observed, with a kind of terrour, that as he passed among their branches, they pulled him back again. He had been persuaded to drink a pretty large dose of strong waters; and upon finding himself drowsy after it, and ready to fall into a slumber, which he fancied was to be his last, he expressed to his companions the great satisfaction he felt in so easy a passage out of this world: for, said he, it is attended with no kind of pain.

Among such sort of men it was that Aurelius sought refuge from the violence and cruelty of his re-enemies.

As the scene of the piece is laid in the most mote and unfrequented of all the Hebrides, er western isles that surround one part of Great Britain; it may not be improper to inform the reader, that he will find a particular account of it, in a little treatise published near half a century

The time appears to have been towards the latter part of the reign of king Charles the Second: when those who governed Scotland under him, with no less cruelty than impolicy, made the people of that country desperate; and then plundered,

imprisoned, or butchered them, for the natural | To thousand nations deals her nectar'd cup

effects of such despair. The best and worthiest men were oft the objects of their most unrelenting fury. Under the title of fanatics, or seditious, they affected to herd, and of course persecuted, whoever wished well to his country, or ventured to stand up in defence of the laws and a legal government. I have now in my hands the copy of a warrant, signed by king Charles himself, for military execution upon them without process or conviction and I know that the original is still kept in the secretary's office for that part of the united kingdom. Thus much I thought it necessary to say, that the reader may not be misled to look upon the relation given by Aurelius in the second canto, as drawn from the wantonness of imagina- | tion, when it hardly arises to strict historical truth. What reception this poem may meet with, the author cannot foresee; and, in his humble, but happy retirement, he needs not be over anxious to know. He has endeavoured to make it one regular and consistent whole; to be true to nature in his thoughts, and to the genius of the language in his manner of expressing them. If he has succeeded in these points, but above all in effectually touching the passions, which, as it is the genuine province, so is it the great triumph, of poetry; the candour of his more discerning readers will readily overlook mistakes or failures in things of less importance.

TO MRS. MALLET.

THOU faithful partner of a heart thy own,
Whose pain, or pleasure, springs from thine alone;
Thou, true as Honour, as Compassion kind,
That, in sweet union, harmonize thy mind:
Here, while thy eyes, for sad Amyntor's woe,
And Theodora's wreck, with tears o'erflow,
O may thy friend's warm wish to Heaven preferr'd
For thee, for him, by gracious Heaven be heard!
So her fair hour of fortune shall be thine,
Unmix'd; and all Amyntor's fondness mine.
So, through long vernal life, with blended ray,
Shall Love light up, and Friendship close our day:
Till, summon'd late this lower heaven to leave,
One sigh shall end us, and one earth receive.

AMYNTOR AND THEODORA:
OR, THE HERMIT.

CANTO L

FAR in the watery waste, where his broad wave
From world to world the vast Atlantic rolls,
Or from the piny shores of Labrador
To frozen Thulé east, her airy height
Aloft to Heaven remotest Kilda lifts;
Last of the sea-girt Hebrides, that guard,
In filial train, Britannia's parent-coast.

Thrice happy land! though freezing on the verge
Of arctic skies; yet, blameless still of arts
That polish to deprave, each softer clime,
With simple Nature, simple Virtue blest!
Beyond Ambition's walk: where never War
Uprear'd his sanguine standard; nor unsheath'd
For wealth or power, the desolating sword.
Where Luxury, soft syren, who around

Of pleasing bane, that soothes at once and kills,
Is yet a name unknown. But calm Content
That lives to reason; ancient Faith that binds
The plain community of guileless hearts
In love and union; Innocence of ill
Their guardian genius: these, the powers that rule
This little world, to all its sons secure
Man's happiest life; the soul serene and sound
From passion's rage, the body from disease.
Red on each cheek behold the rose of health;
Firm in each sinew vigour's pliant spring;
By temperance brac'd to peril and to pain,
Amid the floods they stem, or on the steep
Of upright rocks their straining steps surmount,
For food or pastime. These light up their morn,
And close their eve in slumbers sweetly deep,
Beneath the north, within the circling swell
Of Ocean's raging sound. But last and best,
What Avarice, what Ambition shall not know,
True Liberty is theirs, the heaven-sent guest,
Who in the cave, or on th' uncultur'd wild,
With Independence dwells; and Peace of mind,
In youth, in age, their sun that never sets.

Daughter of Heaven and Nature, deign thy aid,
Spontaneous Muse! O, whether from the depth
Of evening forest, brown with broadest shade;
Or from the brow sublime of vernal alp
As morning dawns; or from the vale at noon,
By some soft stream that slides with liquid foot
Through bowery groves, where Inspiration sits
And listens to thy lore, auspicious come!
O'er these wild waves, o'er this unharbour'd shore,
Thy wing high-hovering spread; and to the gale,
The boreal spirit breathing liberal round
From echoing hill to hill, the lyre attune
With answering cadence free, as best beseems
The tragic theme my plaintive verse unfolds.

Here, good Aurelius-and a scene more wild
The world around, or deeper solitude,
Affliction could not find-Aurelius here,
By fate unequal and the crime of war
Expell'd his native home, the sacred vale
That saw him blest, now wretched and unknown,
Wore out the slow remains of setting life
In bitterness of thought: and with the surge,
And with the sounding storm, his murmur'd moan
Would often mix-oft as remembrance sad
Th' unhappy past recall'd; a faithful wife,
Whom Love first chose, whom Reason long endear'd,
His soul's companion, and his softer friend;
With one fair daughter, in her rosy prime,
Her dawn of opening charms, defenceless left
Within a tyrant's grasp! his foe profess'd,
By civil madness, by intemperate zeal
For differing rites, embitter'd into hate,
And cruelty remorseless!-Thus he liv'd:
If this was life, to load the blast with sighs;
Hung o'er its edge, to swell the flood with tears,
At midnight hour: for midnight frequent heard
The lonely mourner, desolate of heart,
Pour all the husband, all the father forth
In unavailing anguish; stretch'd along
The naked beach; or shivering on the clift,
Smote with the wintry pole in bitter storm,
Hail, snow, and shower, dark-drifting round his head.
Such were his hours; till Time, the wretch's friend,
Life's great physician, skill'd alone to close,
Where sorrow long has wak'd, the weeping eye,
And from the brain, with baleful vapours black,

A cavern's jaws voraginous and vast,
The stormy genius of the deep forsakes:

And o'er the waves, that roar beneath his frown,
Ascending baleful, bids the tempest spread,
Turbid and terrible with hail and rain,
Its blackest pinion, pour its loudening blasts
In whirlwind forth, and from their lowest depth
Upturn the world of waters. Round and round
The tortur'd ship, at his imperious call,
Is wheel'd in dizzy whirl: her guiding helm
Breaks short; her masts in crashing ruin fall;
And each rent sail flies loose in distant air.
Now, fearful moment ! o'er the foundering hull,
Half ocean heav'd, in one broad billowy curve,
Steep from the clouds with horrid shade impends-
Ah! save them Heaven! it bursts in deluge down
With boundless undulation. Shore and sky
Rebellow to the roar. At once engulf'd,
Vessel and crew beneath its torrent sweep,
Are sunk, to rise no more. Aurelius wept:
The tear unbidden dew'd his hoary cheek.
He turn'd his step; he fled the fatal scene,
And brooding, in sad silence, o'er the sight
To him alone disclos'd, his wounded heart

The vapoury air with aromatic smells;
Then, drops of sovereign efficacy, drawn
From mountain plants, within his lips infus'd.
Slow, from the mortal trance, as men from dreams.
Of direful vision, shuddering he awakes:
While life, to scarce-felt motion, faintly lifts
His fluttering pulse, and gradual o'er his cheek
The rosy current wins its refluent way.
Recovering to new pain, his eyes he turn'd
Severe on Heaven, on the surrounding hills
With twilight dim, and on the crowd unknown
Dissolv'd in tears around: then clos'd again,
As loathing light and life. At length, in sounds
Broken and eager, from his heaving breast
Distraction spoke-" Down, down with every sail.
Mercy, sweet Heaven! Ha! now whole ocean
sweeps

In tempest o'er our heads-My soul's last hope!
We will not part-Help, help! yon wave, behold!
That swells betwixt, has borne her from my sight.
O, for a sun to light this black abyss!
Gone-lost-for ever lost!" He ceas'd. Amaze
And trembling on the pale assistants fell:
Whom now, with greeting and the words of peace,

Pour'd out to Heaven in sighs: "Thy will be done, Aurelius bid depart. A pause ensued,

Not mine, supreme Disposer of events!

But death demands a tear, and man must feel
For human woes: the rest submission checks."

Not distant far, where this receding bay 3
Looks northward on the pole, a rocky arch
Expands its self-pois'd concave; as the gate,
Ample, and broad, and pillar'd massy-proof,
Of some unfolding temple. On its height
Is heard the tread of daily-climbing flocks,
That, o'er the green roof spread, their fragrant food
Untended crop. As through this cavern'd path,
Involv'd in pensive thought Aurelius past,
Strack with sad echoes from the sounding vault
Remurmur'd shrill, he stopt, he rais'd his head;
And saw th' assembled natives in a ring,
With wonder and with pity bending o'er
A shipwreck'd man. All-motionless on earth
He lay. The living lustre from his eye,
The vermil hue extinguish'd from his cheek:
And in their place, on each chill feature spread,
The shadowy cloud and ghastliness of Death
With pale suffusion sat. So looks the Moon,
So faintly wan, through hovering mists at eve,
Grey Autumn's train. Fast from his hairs distill'd
The briny wave: and close within his grasp
Was clench'd a broken oar, as one who long
Had stem'd the flood with agonizing breast,
And struggled strong for life. Of youthful prime
He seem'd, and built by Nature's noblest hand;
Where bold proportion, and where softening grace,
Mix'd in each limb, and harmoniz'd his frame.

Aurelius, from the breathless clay, his eye
To Heaven imploring rais'd: then, for he knew
That Life, within her central cell retir'd,
May lurk unseen, diminish'd, but not quench'd,
He bid transport it speedy through the vale,
To his poor cell that lonely stood and low,
Safe from the north beneath a sloping hill:
An antique frame, orbicular, and rais'd
On columns rude; its roof with reverend moss
Light-shaded o'er; its front in ivy hid,
That mantling crept aloft. With pious hand
They turn'd, they chaf'd his frozen limbs, and fum'd

* See Martin's voyage to St. Kilda, p. 20.

Mute, mournful, solemn. On the stranger's face
Observant, anxious, hung his fix'd regard:
Watchful, his ear, each murmur, every breath,
Attentive seiz'd; now eager to begin
Consoling speech; now doubtful to invade
The sacred silence due to grief supreme.
Then thus at last : "O from devouring seas,
By miracle escap'd! if, with thy life,
Thy sense return'd, can yet discern the hand
All-wonderful, that through yon raging sea,
Yon whirling west of tempest, led thee safe;
That hand divine with grateful awe confess,
With prostrate thanks adore. When thon, alas!
Wast number'd with the dead, and clos'd within
Th' unfathom'd gulf; when human hope was fled,
And human help in vain-th' Almighty voice
Then bade destruction spare, and bade the deep
Yield up its prey; that, by his mercy sav'd,
That mercy, thy fair life's remaining race,
A monument of wonder as of love,
May justify; to all the sons of men,
Thy brethren, ever present in their need.
Such praise delights him most-

He hears me not.
Some secret anguish, some transcendent woe,
Sits heavy on his heart, and from his eyes,
Through the clos'd lids, now rolls in bitter stream!

"Yet, speak thy soul, afflicted as thou art!
For know, by mournful privilege 'tis mine,
Myself most wretched, and in sorrow's ways
Severely train'd, to share in every pang
The wretched feel; to soothe the sad of heart;
To number tear for tear, and groan for groan,
With every son and daughter of distress.
Speak then, and give thy labouring bosom vent:
My pity is, my friendship shall be, thine;
To calm thy pain, and guide thy virtue back,
Through reason's paths, to happiness and Heaven."
The hermit thus: and, after some sad pause
Of musing wonder, thus the man unknown.

"What have I heard?-On this untravell'd shore,
Nature's last limit, hemni'd with oceans round
Howling and harbourless, beyond all faith
A comforter to find! whose language wears
The garb of civil life; a friend, whose breast

The gracious meltings of sweet pity move!
Amazement all! my grief to silence charm'd
Is lost in wonder-but, thou good unknown,
If woes, for ever wedded to despair,

That wish no cure, are thine, behold in me
A meet companion; one whom Earth and Heaven
Combine to curse; whom never future morn
Shall light to joy, nor evening with repose
Descending shade-O, son of this wild world!
From social converse though for ever barr'd,
Though chill'd with endless winter from the pole,
Yet warm'd by goodness, form'd to tender sense
Of human woes, beyond what milder climes,
By fairer suns attemper'd, courtly boast;
O say, did e'er thy breast, in youthful life,
Touch'd by a beam from Beauty all-divine,
Did e'er thy bosom her sweet influence own,
In pleasing tumult pour'd through every vein,
And panting at the heart, when first our eye
Receives impression! Then, as passion grew,
Did Heaven, consenting to thy wish, indulge
That bliss no wealth can bribe, no power bestow,
That bliss of angels, love by love repaid?
Heart streaming full to heart in mutual flow
Of faith and friendship, tenderness and truth-
If these thy fate distinguish'd, thou wilt then,
My joys conceiving, image my despair,
How total! how extreme! For this, all this,
Late my fair fortune, wreck'd on yonder flood,
Lies lost and bury'd there-O, awful Heaven!
Who to the wind and to the whelming wave
Her blameless head devoted, thou alone
Can'st tell what I have lost-O, ill-starr'd maid!
O, most undone Amyntor!"-Sighs and tears,
And heart-heav'd groans, at this, his voice suppress'd,
The rest was agony and dumb despair.

Now o'er their heads damp Night her stormy gloom
Spread, ere the glimmering twilight was expir'd,
With huge and heavy horrour closing round

In doubling clouds on clouds. The mournful scene,
The moving tale, Aurelius deeply felt:
And thus reply'd, as one in Nature skill'd,
With soft assenting sorrow in his look,
And words to soothe, not combat hopeless love.
"Amyntor, by that Heaven who sees thy tears!
By faith and friendship's sympathy divine!
Could I the sorrows heal I more than share,
This bosom, trust me, should from thine transfer
Its sharpest grief. Such grief, alas! how just?
How long in silent anguish to descend,
When reason and when fondness o'er the tomb
Are fellow-mourners? He, who can resign,
Has never lov'd: and wert thou to the sense,
The sacred feeling of a loss like thine,
Cold and insensible, thy breast were then
No mansion for humanity, or thought
Of noble aim. Their dwelling is with love,
And tender pity; whose kind tear adorns
The clouded cheek, and sanctifies the soul
They soften, not subdue. We both will mix,
For her thy virtue lov'd, thy truth laments,
Our social sighs and still, as morn unveils
The brightening hill, or evening's misty shade
Its brow obscures, her gracefulness of form,
Her mind all-lovely, each ennobling each,

And drowsy hour steals fast upon our talk.
Here break we off: and thou, sad mourner, try
Thy weary limbs, thy wounded mind, to balm
With timely sleep. Each gracious wing from
Heaven

Of those that minister to erring man,
Near-hovering, hush thy passion into calm;
Serene thy slumbers with presented scenes
Of brightest visions; whisper to thy heart
That holy peace which goodness ever shares :
And to us both be friendly as we need."

CANTO II.

Now Midnight rose, and o'er the general scene,
Air, ocean, earth, drew broad her blackest veil,
Vapour and cloud. Around th' unsleeping isle
Yet howl'd the whirlwind, yet the billow groan'd;
And, in mix'd horrour, to Amyntor's ear [pall'd.
Borne through the gloom, his shrieking sense ap-
Shook by each blast, and swept by every wave,
Again pale memory labours in the storm:
Again from her he's torn, whom more than life
His fondness lov'd. And now, another shower
Of sorrow, o'er the dear unhappy maid,
Effusive stream'd; till late, through every power
The soul subdued sunk sad to slow repose:
And all her darkening scenes, by dim degrees,
Were quench'd in total night. A pause from pain
Not long to last: for Fancy, oft awake
While Reason sleeps, from her illusive cell
Call'd up wild shapes of visionary fear,
Of visionary bliss, the hour of rest

[length,

To mock with mimic shows. And lo! the deeps
In airy tumult swell. Beneath a hill
Amyntor heaves of overwhelming seas;
Or rides, with dizzy dread, from cloud to cloud,
The billow's back. Anon, the shadowy world
Shifts to some boundless continent unknown,
Where solitary, o'er the starless void,
Dumb Silence broods. Through heaths of dreary
Slow on he drags his staggering step infirm
With breathless toil; hears torrent floods afar
Roar through the wild; and, plung'd in central caves,
Falls headlong many a fathom into night.
Yet there, at once, in all her living charms,
And brightening with their glow the brown abyss,
Rose Theodora. Smiling, in her eye
Sat, without cloud, the soft-consenting soul,
That, guilt unknowing, had no wish to hide.
A spring of sudden myrtles flowering round
Their walk embower'd; while nightingales beneath
Sung spousals, as along th' enamell'd turf
They seem'd to fly, and interchang'd their souls,
Melting in mutual softness. Thrice his arms
The fair encircled: thrice she fled his grasp,
And fading into darkness mix'd with air-
"O turn! O stay thy flight!"--so loud he cry'd,
Sleep and its train of humid vapours fled.
He groan'd, he gaz'd around: his inward sense
Yet glowing with the vision's vivid beam,
Still, on his eye, the hovering shadow blaz'd;
Her voice still murmur'd in his tinkling ear;
Grateful deception! till returning thought

Shall be our frequent theme. Then shalt thou hear Left broad awake, amid th' incumbent lour

From me, in sad return, a tale of woes,
So terrible-Amyntor, thy pain'd heart
Amid its own, will shudder at the ills

That mine has bled with-But behold; the dark

Of mute and mournful night, again he felt
His grief inflam'd throb fresh in every vein.
To frenzy stung, upstarting from his couch,
The vale, the shore, with darkling step he roam'd,