Lives of Scottish Poets: With Ports. and Vignettes, Volum 1

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Side 168 - Thou ling'ring star, with less'ning ray, That lov'st to greet the early morn, Again thou usher'st in the day My Mary from my soul was torn. O Mary! dear departed shade! Where is thy place of blissful rest? Seest thou thy lover lowly laid? Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?
Side 173 - The Poetic Genius of my Country found me, as the prophetic bard Elijah did Elisha — at the PLOUGH, and threw her inspiring mantle over me. She bade me sing the loves, the joys, the rural scenes and rural pleasures of my native soil, in my native tongue ; I tuned my wild, artless notes as she inspired.
Side 163 - Falsely luxurious, will not man awake ; And, springing from the bed of sloth, enjoy The cool, the fragrant, and the silent hour, To meditation due and sacred song ? For is there aught in sleep "Can charm the wise ? To lie in dead oblivion, losing half The fleeting moments of too short a life ; Total extinction of th' enlighten'd soul ! Or else to feverish vanity alive, Wilderd, and tossing through distemper'd dreams?
Side 147 - Winter comes, to rule the varied year, Sullen and sad, with all his rising train — Vapours, and clouds, and storms. Be these my theme ; These, that exalt the soul to solemn thought And heavenly musing. Welcome, kindred glooms...
Side 164 - As a writer, he is entitled to one praise of the highest kind: his mode of thinking, and of expressing his thoughts, is original. His blank verse is no more the blank verse of Milton, or of any other poet, than the rhymes of Prior are the rhymes of Cowley.
Side 120 - Mid those soft friends, whose hearts, some future day, Shall melt, perhaps, to hear thy tragic song.
Side 170 - I had been for some days skulking from covert to covert, under all the terrors of a jail ; as some ill-advised people had uncoupled the merciless pack of the law at my heels. I had taken the last farewell of my few friends ; my chest was on the road to Greenock, I had composed the last song I should ever measure in Caledonia, The gloomy night is gat heriag fast,* when a letter from Dr. Blacklock to a friend of mine, overthrew all my schemes, by opening new prospects to my poetic ambition.
Side 165 - Poesy was still a darling walk for my mind, but it was only indulged in according to the humour of the hour. I had usually half a dozen or more pieces on hand ; I took up one or other, as it suited the momentary tone of the mind, and dismissed the work as it bordered on fatigue. My passions, when once lighted up, raged like so many devils, till they got vent in rhyme ; and then the conning over my verses...
Side 158 - Sisters now attend, Now waft me from the green hill's side, Whose cold turf hides the buried friend...
Side 156 - ... renounce the boundless store Of charms which Nature to her votary yields! The warbling woodland, the resounding shore, The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields; All that the genial ray of morning gilds, And all that echoes to the song of even, All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields, And all the dread magnificence of heaven, O how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven ! X.

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