Ambiguous looks, that scorn and yet relent,
Denials mild, and firm unalter'd truth;
Reluctant pride, and amorous faint consent,
And meeting ardours, and exulting youth.

Sleep, wayward god! hath sworn, while these remain,
With flattering dreams to dry his nightly tear,
And cheerful Hope, so oft invok'd in vain,
With fairy songs shall soothe his pensive ear.

If, bound by vows to Friendship's gentle side,
And fond of soul, thou hop'st an equal grace,
If youth or maid thy joys and griefs divide,
O, much entreated, leave this fatal place!

Sweet Peace, who long hath shunn'd my plaintive day
Consents at length to bring me short delight,

Thy careless steps may scare her doves away,
And grief with raven note usurp the night.

ODE ON THE POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS OF THE

HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND:

CONSIDERED AS THE SUBJECT OF POETRY.

INSCRIBED TO MR. JOHN HOME.

HOME, thou return'st from Thames, whose Naiads long Have seen thee lingering 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 youthf

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. 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 every vale Shall prompt the Poet, and his song demand;

*How truly did Collins predict Home's tragic powers!

A gentleman of the name of Barrow, who introduced Home to Collins.

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.

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, on 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, every 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 th' untutor'd swain:

Nor thou, though 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.

E'en yet preserv'd, how often may'st thou hear,
Where to the pole the Boreal mountains run,
Taught by the father to his listening son,

Strange lays, whose power had charm'd a Spenser's ear.

At every 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 every 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,

The sturdy clans pour'd forth their brawny swarms, And hostile brothers met, to prove each other's arms.

'Tis thine to sing, how, framing hideous spells,

In Sky's lone isle, the gifted wizard-seer,

Lodg'd in the wintry cave with Fate's fell spear, Or in the depth of Uist's dark forest dwells: How they, whose sight such dreary dreams engross, With their own vision oft astonish'd droop, When o'er the wat'ry strath, or quaggy moss, They see the gliding ghosts unbodied troop. Or, if in sports, or on the festive green, Their destin'd glance some fated youth descry, Who now, perhaps, in lusty vigour seen,

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

And rosy health, shall soon lamented die.
For them the viewless forms of air obey;
Their bidding heed, and at their beck repair:
They know what spirit brews the stormful day,
And heartless, oft like moody madness, stare
To see the phantom train their secret work prepare.

The fifth stanza, and the half of the sixth, in Dr. Carlyle's copy, printed in the first volume of the "Transactions" of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, being deficient, have been supplied by Mr. Mackenzie ; whose lines are here annexed, for the purpose of comparison, and to do justice to the elegant author of the Man of Feeling:

"Or on some bellying rock that shades the deep,
They view the lurid signs that cross the sky,
Where in the west, the brooding tempests lie;
And hear the first, faint, rustling pennons sweep.
Or in the arched cave, where deep and dark
The broad, unbroken billows heave and swell,
In horrid musings wrapt, they sit to mark
The lab'ring moon; or list the nightly yell
Of that dread spirit, whose gigantic form

The seer's entranced eye can well survey,
Through the dim air who guides the driving storm,
And points the wretched bark its destin'd prey.
Or him who hovers on his flagging wing,

O'er the dire whirlpool, that, in ocean's waste,
Draws instant down whate'er devoted thing

The falling breeze within its reach hath plac'd-
The distant seaman hears, and flies with trembling haste:
Or, if on land the fiend exerts his sway,

Silent he broods o'er quicksand, bog, or fen,
Far from the sheltering roof and haunts of men,

When witched darkness shuts the eye of day,
And shrouds each star that wont to cheer the night;