IX.

And see, the fairy valleys fade,

Dun Night has veil'd the solemn view !

Yet once again, dear parted shade,

Meek Nature's child, again adieu !

X.

* The genial meads assign'd to bless

Thy life, shall mourn thy early doom!

Their hinds, and shepherd girls shall dress.

With simple hands thy rural tomb.

XI.

Long, long, thy stone, and pointed clay

Shall melt the musing Briton's eyes,

O vales, and wild woods! shall He say,

In yonder grave Your Druid lies!

* Mr. Thomson resided in the neighbourhood of Richmond some time before his death.

AN

ODE

ON THE

POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS

OF THE

HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND.

HOME, thou return'st from Thames, whose Naiads

long

Have seen thee ling'ring with a fond delay,

'Mid those soft friends, whose hearts some future day

Shall melt, perhaps, to hear thy tragic song.

Go not unmindful of that cordial youth *,

Whom, long endear'd, thou leav'st by Lavant's side;

Together let us wish him lasting truth,

And joy untainted with his destin'd bride.

* A gentleman of the name of Barrow, who introduced Home

to Collins.

Go: nor regardless, while these numbers boast

My short-liv'd bliss, forget my social name; But think, far off, how, on the Southern coast, I met thy friendship with an equal flame! Fresh to that soil thou turn'st, where ev'ry vale

Shall prompt the poet, and his song demand: To thee thy copious subjects ne'er shall fail; Thou need'st but take thy pencil to thy hand,

And paint what all believe, who own thy genial

land.

II.

There must thou wake perforce thy Doric quill;

"Tis Fancy's land to which thou sett'st thy feet; Where still, 'tis said, the Fairy people meet, Beneath each birken shade, or mead or hill.

There each trim lass, that skims the milky store

To the swart tribes, their creamy bowls allots;

By night they sip it round the cottage-door,

While airy minstrels warble jocund notes. There, ev'ry herd, by sad experience, knows How, wing'd with Fate, their elf-shot arrows fly, When the sick ewe her summer food foregoes,

Or, stretch'd on earth, the heart-smit heifers lie. Such airy beings awe the untutor'd swain:

Nor thou, tho' learn'd, his homelier thoughts

neglect;

Let thy sweet Muse the rural faith sustain;

These are the themes of simple, sure effect,

That add new conquests to her boundless reign,

And fill, with double force, her heart-commanding

strain.

III.

Ev'n yet preserv'd, how often may'st thou hear,

Where to the pole the Boreal mountains run,
Taught by the father, to his list'ning son,

Strange lays, whose pow'r had charm'd a Spenser's ear.
At ev'ry pause, before thy mind possest,

Old Runic bards shall seem to rise around,

With uncouth lyres, in many-colour'd vest,

Their matted hair with boughs fantastic crown'd:

Whether thou bid'st the well-taught hind repeat

The choral dirge that mourns some chieftain brave,

When ev'ry shrieking maid her bosom beat,

And strew'd with choicest herbs his scented grave;

Or whether, sitting in the shepherd's shiel *,

Thou hear'st some sounding tale of war's alarms; When at the bugle's call, with fire and steel,

* A summer hut, built in the high part of the mountains, to tend their flocks in the warm season, when the pasture is fine.