SONNETS

ON THE SCENERY OF THE TWEED;

INSCRIBED TO C. E. M.

As we had been in heart, now link'd in hand,
Green Learmonth and the Cheviots left behind,
Homeward 'twas ours by Pastoral Tweed to wind,
Through the Arcadia of the Border-land:
Vainly would words portray my feelings, when
(A dreary chasm of separation past)

Fate

gave thee to my vacant arms at last, And made me the most happy man of men. Accept these trifles, lovely and beloved, And haply, in the days of future years, While the far past to memory reappears, Thou may'st retrace these tablets, not unmoved, Catherine whose holy constancy was proved By all that deepest tries, and most endears.

June 1829.

VOL. I.

G

I.

WARK CASTLE.

EMBLEM of strength, which time hath quite subdued,
Scarcely on thy green mount the eye may trace
Those girding walls which made thee once a place
Of succour, in old days of deadly feud.

Yes! thou wert once the Scotch marauder's dread;
And vainly did the Roxburgh shafts assail
Thy moated towers, from which they fell like hail;
While waved Northumbria's pennon o'er thy head.1
Thou wert the work of man, and so hast pass'd
Like those who piled thee; but the features still
Of steadfast Nature all unchanged remain ;
Still Cheviot listens to the northern blast,

And the blue Tweed winds murmuring round thy hill;
While Carham whispers of the slaughter'd Dane. 2

II.

DRYBURGH ABBEY.

BENEATH, Tweed murmur'd 'mid the forests green :
And through thy beech-tree and laburnum boughs,
A solemn ruin, lovely in repose,

Dryburgh! thine ivy'd walls were greyly seen :
Thy court is now a garden, where the flowers
Expand in silent beauty, and the bird,
Flitting from arch to arch, alone is heard

To cheer with song the melancholy bowers.
Yet did a solemn pleasure fill the soul,

As through thy shadowy cloistral cells we trode,
To think, hoar pile! that once thou wert the abode
Of men, who could to solitude control

Their hopes-yea! from Ambition's pathways stole,
To give their whole lives blamelessly to God! 3

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III.

MELROSE ABBEY.

SUMMER was on thee-the meridian light,
And, as we wander'd through thy column'd aisles,
Deck'd all thy hoar magnificence with smiles,

Making the rugged soft, the gloomy bright.
Nor was reflection from us far apart,

As clomb our steps thy lone and lofty stair,

Till, gain'd the summit, tick'd in silent air

Thine ancient clock, as 'twere thy throbbing heart. Monastic grandeur and baronial pride

Subdued the former half, the latter quite,

Pile of king David! to thine altar's site,

Full many a footstep guides, and long shall guide ; Where they repose, who met not, save in fight— And Douglas sleeps with Evers, side by side! 4