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On Morven's fabled hills and stormy shore,
Where sinks the stranger's mind with solemn dread,
As list'ning to the western tempest's roar
Athwart the gloom he sees the warlike dead,
On Scotia's misty heaths who fought and bled:
Or hears the bugle shrill or sounding shield,
By mountain stream, where mighty Fingal led
The warrior chiefs, to rouse the embattled field,

And bow and spear and sword with strength gigantic wield,

Thou lov'st to stray; or else thy viewless form
Plac'd on the tow'ring rock where Conway flows,
Sweeps the loud harp, when ceas'd the battle's storm,
And sorrowing sings her slaughter'd country's woes.
Inspir'd by thee the kindling bosom glows,
And images of joy or sadness fill the mind.

The sweet Euphrosyne now Milton shows;"

In sable stole with solemn step, behind,

Appears the muse, who hides the laughing beauty from mankind.

Sweet is the joy when Fancy brings to view
The lovely babe, some fleeting years gone by,
A manly champion to his country true:
Skill'd in the senate; prompt in fields to die
Ere from his country's foes he dares to fly.
Or yet a blooming nymph, her mother's joy,
For:u'd to delight and fix each wand'ring eye:
Whose filial duties all her cares employ,

To sooth declining age, and life's surrounding ills destroy.

Ah! how does Beauty's smile the lips adorn,
And give a constant sunshine to the breast;
So Fancy's smile is sweeter than the morn,
In every scene, o'er every mind confest;
To know her joys is always to be blest.
But ah! when tears bedew her mournful eye,

And Melancholy's glooms her form invest;
Then from her heaving bosom comes the sigh,
And pleasing scenes of joy and beauty quickly fly.

• See the beautiful contrast between the gay and the serious, exhibited in L'Allegro and I Penseroso.

* Then to deep wilds and solitudes she goes,
And loves reclining by the brooks forlorn,
Weeps o'er her real or imagin'd woes,
And feels the pangs of melancholy born;
While clouds and tempests darken every morn.
Painful those pleasing scenes of late so gay;
The woodland melody and hunter's horn;
Obtrusive now the brilliant light of day;

And calm resign'd she lives to pining grief a prey.

Forthwith a youth whose looks bespeak despair,
Sighs at her feet,' perchance for hopeless love:
For, ever to his view appears the fair,

Whose charms he sung in each romantic grove,

Where he was wont the anxious day to rove.
Those smiles which Heaven and happiness impart
Are his no more; they warm another's love;

They animate with joy another's heart,

While his pain'd bosom rankles with the poison'd smart.

And lo the passions which convulse the mind!
Boisterous and sad along the vale appear

All that destroy the peace of human kind;
Burning with rage, or felt the scalding tear:
Green Jealousy, Revenge and pallid Fear;

And Envy, with'ring at another's ease.

The selfish brood with looks and frowns austere,

Whom no benev❜lence or good nature please;

Whose looks distorted show the troubled mind's disease.

Hark! on the margin of the silent stream,

What pensive strains the gloomy nymph assail :

The contrast between a gay and gloomy imagination is here attemptedThe Powers of Fancy are of more importance in this point of view than in any other-inasmuch as happiness or misery is the consequence of their influence either way-Dr. Beattie has divided these powers into pleasurable and painful, in his Elements of the Moral Science, and most justly pronounces a melancholy imagination to be the most serious misfortune which can fall to the lot of a human being.

Every one who knows the character of those persons who are here represented as paying court to Fancy in her melancholy mood.-Their poetry partakes generally of a pensive and serious cast-Collins died deranged-Chatterton committed suicide, and Beattie's poetry particularly is tinged with a pensive melancholy.

From whence proceeds the melancholy theme
Which plaintive dies along the sighing gale?
"Tis serious Gray, whose mournful lines bewail
The various ills that human bliss destroy,

And Collins, whose sweet harp could not avail

To save from penury or yield him joy;

The charms of Genius feel the anguish'd nerves alloy.

Young, too, his ever gloomy verse began,

And join'd his tones to swell the murm'ring sounds;

And moral Cowper sang of villain man:

With Beattie's Minstrel loud the wood resounds,
With plaint of man and suffering Virtue's wounds;
Alas! what melting tones steal on the ear

Of listening Fancy, and her soul confounds!

What sounds pathetic prompt her ready tear,

And to her pensive mind, the imbowering groves endear!

Power immortal! thy enchanting Art,

To time eternal gives the favor'd name:

Can each sublime and lovely view impart,
Inspire the Muse, and feed the constant flame
Which Genius warms-Hence Homer came
In godlike majesty, to charm the age:
Succeeding times with joy the poet claim;
For his the warrior's pride, the battles rage,

And Nature owns each scene and hero of his lofty page

Inspir'd by thee, the British Muse ascends
Empyreal regions and a God adores:
Then downward to unfathom'd deeps descends
And Hell's dread horrors fearfully explores,
The burning lake and those dark dismal shores.
Then Eden blooms, how fragrant, fresh and fair!
Where happy man with reverence implores
His God; while flowrets sweet, and treasures rare,
Delight the ravish'd sense and banish every care.

Who without joy has ever heard the song,
Which like soft music steals upon the ear?

While fays and sprites and ghosts and witches throng
Around, to please, or blanch the cheek with fear;
And deep wrought sorrows force the burning tear.

Shakspeare was born to live for every age,
And to the soul of taste the Muse endear,
With sweet illusions fill the various page,
With pity move the heart, or swell with boundless rage.

Hail pleasing Scott! whose sweetly flowing song,
Delights the swain on Ettrick's banks who roves:
Wand'ring with fresh delight those scenes among,
Clan-Alpine's Mountain pride and piny groves;
And thrills at Malcolm's and fears Ellen's loves.
O how enchanting is the poet's art!

With power divine it every passion moves;

With Fancy's visions throbs the enthusiast heart

As they Loch-Katrine's lake and scenes sublime impart.

O envied bards! how great the wond'rous skil},
To thrill the heart with ecstasy and joy:
To bend whole nations to thy sacred will
With tale of Minstrel or ill fated Troy,
Thine is unceasing bliss without alloy.
Lov'd is thy sacred art from pole to pole,
By Lapland youth or Persia's amorous boy;*
For when the streams of Fancy round them roll,
Theirs is the envied power to captivate the soul.

And may such joys be welcom❜d more and more
And rouse the Genius of this unfam'd land;
In lofty strain, like wizard Scott, to soar,
And court the muses to this foreign strand.
Fainting they droop and wait the mild command;

For British skies no longer genial glow;

And Linden's Muse-The harp which owns the hand

Of sad Montgomery, are all we know,

Since the full stream with Gray and Collins ceas'd to flow.

Come then Imagination! grant thy aid,
The promis'd Genius of this land to see:
When every lofty hill and rural glade,

The muse's sacred haunts shall proudly be:
And magic visions beam around for thee,

* Hafiz.

Then shall a second Homer rouse that fire,

Our humbled sons forget once made them free;
Then shall another Dryden string the lyre;

A Shakspeare Avon leave, for Susquehannah's side.

Where venerable ruins proudly stand,'

She loves to stray and think on ages past;
They, rudely great, a solemn awe command;
For distant years have dimly overcast
The times when Ossian's harp hung in the blast.
Up the long stream of time the fancy goes,
When songs of bards adorn'd the chief's repast,
And while the heart with sacred feeling glows;
The mould'ring turret 'round a melancholy throws.

Where'er the wand'ring distant traveller strays,
On India's coast or Greenland's ice-bound shore;
Or feels on Nubia's sands the scorching rays,
As bold he dares the Niger's source explore
Heedless of savage tribes, or tiger's roar.
Wrapt in thy fairy mantle he surveys
The heavenly hue each home lov'd object wore;
With brighter tints they court his eager gaze;

And sooth his wearied heart and promise happier days.

O happy man! and how supremely blest!

To see the future with propitious eyes:

While soothing visions warm the youthful breast,

And sweet delusions cheat him till he dies

To court her smiles is always to be wise.

The sacred boon kind Heaven in pity gave,

Well may the aid divine fond mortals prize:
Imagination charms us to the grave;
Her witching spells from real ills of life can save.

And even beyond the grave she loves to soar,
And trace those future mansions in the sky;
And sacred blissful realms above explore:
Far from this fading world she longs to fly
Where God appears to the astonish'd eye.
O happy regions! scenes of endless joy!
For which the mortal sufferer heaves the sigh:
Where bliss supreme is found without alloy;

And themes of boundless love and praise the soul employ.

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