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.

Even yet preserved, how often mayest thou hear,
Where to the pole the Boreal mountains run,
Taught by the father, to his listening son,
Strange lays, whose power had charmed a Spenser's ear.
At every pause, before thy mind possest,

Old Runic bards shall seem to rise around,

With uncouth lyres, in many-coloured vest,

Their matted hair with boughs fantastic crowned:
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 strewed 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,

Line 17th, A summer hut, built in the high part of the mountains, to tend their flocks, when the pasture is fine.

The sturdy clans poured 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,
Lodged in the wintery 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 astonished droop,

When, o'er the watery strath, or quaggy moss,
They see the gliding ghosts unbodied troop.
Or, if in sports, or on the festive green,
Their destined glance some fated youth descry,
Who now, perhaps, in lusty vigour seen,
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.

"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 rapt, they sit to mark
The labouring 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 destined 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 placedThe 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,

This ode being found in an unfinished state, the lines within the inverted commas were written, to complete the sense, by Henry Mackenzie, Esq. of Edinburgh.

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;
Or, if the drifted snow perplex the way,

With treacherous gleam he lures the fated wight,
And leads him floundering on, and quite astray."

These, too, thou❜lt sing! for well thy magic muse
Can to the topmost heaven of grandeur soar;
Or stoop to wail the swain that is no more.
Ah, homely swains! your homeward steps ne'er lose;
Let not dank Will mislead you to the heath,
Dancing in mirky night, o'er fen and lake;

He glows, to draw you downward to your death,
In his bewitched, low, marshy, willow brake!
What though far off, from some dark dell espied,
His glimmering mazes cheer the excursive sight,
Yet turn, ye wanderers, turn your steps aside,

Line 11th, A fiery meteor, called by various names, such as Will with the Wisp, Jack with the Lanthorn, &c. It hovers in the air over marshy and fenny places.

Nor trust the guidance of that faithless light; For watchful, lurking 'mid the unrustling reed, At those mirk hours the wily monster lies, And listens oft to hear the passing steed,

And frequent round him rolls his sullen eyes, If chance his savage wrath may some weak wretch surprise.

Ah, luckless swain, o'er all unblest, indeed!
Whom late bewildered in the dank, dark fen,
Far from his flocks, and smoking hamlet, then!
To that sad spot where hums the sedgy weed:

On him, enraged, the fiend, in angry mood,
Shall never look with pity's kind concern,

But instant, furious, raise the whelming flood
O'er its drowned banks, forbidding all return!
Or, if he meditate his wished 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.

Meantime the watery surge shall round him rise,
Poured sudden forth from every swelling source!

What now remains but tears and hopeless sighs?