On him, enrag'd, the fiend, in angry mood,
Shall never look with Pity's kind concern,

But instant, furious, raise the whelming flood
O'er its drown'd banks, forbidding all return!
Or, if he meditate his wish'd escape,
To some dim hill, that seems uprising near,
To his faint eye, the grim and grisly shape,
In all its terrors clad, shall wild appear.

Mean time the watery surge shall round him rise, Pour'd sudden forth from every swelling source !

What now remains but tears and hopeless sighs? His fear-shook limbs have lost their youthful force, And down the waves he floats, a pale and breathless corse!

For him in vain his anxious wife shall wait,
Or wander forth to meet him on his way:
For him in vain at to-fall of the day,

His babes shall linger at the' unclosing gate!
Ah, ne'er shall he return! Alone, if night

Her travell❜d limbs in broken slumbers steep! With drooping willows dress'd, his mournful sprite Shall visit sad, perchance, her silent sleep : Then he perhaps, with moist and watery hand Shall fondly seem to press her shuddering cheek, And with his blue swoln face before her stand, And shivering cold these piteous accents speak : 'Pursue, dear wife, thy daily toils, pursue,

At dawn or dusk, industrious as before; Nor e'er of me one helpless thought renew, While I lie weltering on the osier'd shore, Drown'd by the Kelpie's* wrath, nor e'er shall aid thee more!'

*The water fiend.

Unbounded is thy range; with varied skill [spring
Thy Muse may, like those feathery tribes which
From their rude rocks, extend her skirting wing
Round the moist marge of each cold Hebrid isle,
To that hoar pile* which still its ruins shows:
In whose small vaults a pigmy-folk is found,

Whose bones the delver with his spade upthrows, And culls them, wondering, from the hallow'd ground!

Or thither, where beneath the showery west, The mighty kings of three fair realms are laid : Once foes, perhaps, together now they rest,

No slaves revere them, and no wars invade : Yet frequent now, at midnight solemn hour,

The rifted mounds their yawning cells unfold, And forth the monarchs stalk with sovereign power, In pageant robes, and wreath'd with sheeny gold, And on their twilight tombs aërial council hold.

But, oh! o'er all, forget not Kilda's race,

[tides,

On whose bleak rocks, which brave the wasting Fair Nature's daughter, Virtue, yet abides. Go! just, as they, their blameless manners trace! Then to my ear transmit some gentle song, Of those whose lives are yet sincere and plain, Their bounded walks the rugged cliffs along, And all their prospect but the wintry main.

With sparing temperance, at the needful time, They drain the scented spring: or, hunger-press'd,

* One of the Hebrides is called the Isle of Pigmies; it is reported, that several miniature bones of the human species have been dug up in the ruins of a chapel there.

+ Icolmkill, one of the Hebrides, where near sixty of the ancient Scottish, Irish, and Norwegian kings are interred.

Along the' Atlantic rock, undreading climb, And of its eggs despoil the solan's* nest.

Thus, bless'd in primal innocence they live, Suffic'd and happy with that frugal fare

Which tasteful toil and hourly danger give: Hard is their shallow soil, and bleak and bare; Nor ever vernal bee was heard to murmur there!

Nor need'st thou blush that such false themes engage
Thy gentle mind, of fairer stores possess'd;
For not alone they touch the village breast,
But fill'd, in elder time, the historic page.
There, Shakspeare's self, with every garland

crown'd,

Flew to those fairy climes his fancy sheen,
In musing hour; his wayward sisters found,
And with their terrors dress'd the magic scene.
From them he sung, when mid his bold design,
Before the Scot, afflicted, and aghast!

The shadowy kings of Banquo's fated line
Through the dark cave in gleamy pageant pass'd.
Proceed! nor quit the tales which, simply told,
Could once so well my answering bosom pierce ;
Proceed, in forceful sounds, and colour bold,
The native legends of thy land rehearse ;
To such adapt thy lyre, and suit thy powerful verse.

In scenes like these, which, daring to depart

From sober truth, are still to Nature true, And call forth fresh delight to Fancy's view, The' heroic Muse employ'd her Tasso's art!

* An aquatic bird like a goose, on the eggs of which the inhabi tants of St. Kilda, another of the Hebrides, chiefly subsist.

How have I trembled, when, at Tancred's stroke, Its gushing blood the gaping cypress pour'd!

When each live plant with mortal accents spoke, And the wild blast upheav'd the vanish'd sword? How have I sat, when pip'd the pensive wind, To bear his harp by British Fairfax strung! Prevailing poet! whose undoubting mind Believ'd the magic wonders which he sung; Hence, at each sound, imagination glows! Hence, at each picture, vivid life starts here!

Hence his warm lay with softest sweetness flows! Melting it flows, pure, murmuring, strong, and clear, And fills the' impasssion'd heart, and wins the harmonious ear!

All hail, ye scenes that o'er my soul prevail;
Ye splendid friths and lakes, which, far away,
Are by smooth Annan* fill'd, or pastoral Tay,*
Or Don's* romantic springs, at distance hail!
The time shall come, when I, perhaps, may tread
Your lowly glens,† o'erhung with spreading
broom;

Or o'er your stretching heaths, by Fancy led:

Or, o'er your mountains creep, in awful gloom! Then will I dress once more the faded bower,

Where Jonson‡ sat in Drummond's classic shade; Or crop, from Tiviotdale, each lyric flower,

And mourn, on Yarrow's banks, where Willy's laid!

*Three rivers in Scotland.

+ Vallies.

Ben Jonson paid a visit on foot, in 1619, to the Scottish poet Drummond, at his seat of Hawthornden, within four miles of Edinburgh. See an account of a conversation which passed between them, in Drummond's Works, 1711.

Meantime, ye powers that on the plains which bore The cordial youth, on Lothian's plains,* attend!

Where'er Home dwells, on hill, or lowly moor,
To him I love your kind protection lend,
And, touch'd with love like mine, preserve my
absent friend!t

* Barrow it seems was at the Edinburgh University, which is in the county of Lothian.

+ The following exquisite supplemental stanzas to the foregoing Ode, will be found to commemorate some striking Scottish superstitions omitted by Collins. They are the production of William Erskine, Esq. Advocate. and form a Continuation of the Address, by Collins, to the Author of Douglas, exhorting him to celebrate the traditions of Scotland. They originally appeared in the Edinburgh Magazine for April, 1788.

'Thy Muse may tell, how, when at evening's close,
To meet her love beneath the twilight shade,
O'er many a broom-clad brae and heathy glade,
In merry mood the village maiden goes:
There, on a streamlet's margin as she lies,
Chanting some carol till her swain appears,
With visage, deadly pale, in pensive guise,
Beneath a wither'd fir his form he rears!*
Shrieking and sad, she bends her eirie flight,
When, mid dire heaths, where flits the taper blue,
The whilst the moon sheds dim a sickly light,
The airy funeral meets her blasted view!

When, trembling, weak, she gains her cottage low,
Where magpies scatter notes of presage wide,

Some one shall tell, while tears in torrents flow,

That, just when twilight dimm'd the green hill's side,

Far in his lonely sheil her hapless shepherd died.

*The wraith, or spectral appearance, of a person shortly to die, is a firm article in the creed of Scottish superstition.