Soon as o'er eastern hills the morning peers, On the green furze, clothed o'er with golden blooms, That fill the air with fragrance all around, The linnet sits, and tricks his glossy plumes, While o'er the wild his broken notes resound. While the sun journeys down the western sky, Along the green sward, mark'd with Roman mound, Beneath the blithesome shepherd's watchful eye, The cheerful lambkins dance and frisk around. Now is the time for those who wisdom love, Who love to walk in virtue's flowery road, Along the lovely paths of spring to rove, And follow nature up to nature's God. Thus Zoroaster studied nature's laws; cause, And left the wondering multitude behind. Thus Ashley gather'd academic bays; Thus gentle Thomson, as the seasons roll, Taught them to sing the great Creator's praise, And bear their poet's name from pole to pole. Thus have I walk'd along the dewy lawn; My frequent foot the blooming wild hath worn; Before the lark I've sung the beauteous dawn, And gather'd health from all the gales of morn. Then, sleep my nights, and quiet bless'd my days; more. Now, Spring returns: but not to me returns And count the silent moments as they pass; The winged moments, whose unstaying speed No art can stop, or in their course arrest; Whose flight shall shortly count me with the dead, And lay me down in peace with them that rest. Oft morning dreams presage approaching fate; And morning dreams, as poets tell, are true. Led by pale ghosts, I enter death's dark gate, And bid the realms of light and life adieu. I hear the helpless wail, the shriek of woe; Farewell, ye blooming fields! ye cheerful plains! There let me wander at the shut of eve, Where sleep sits dewy on the labourer's eyes; The world and all its busy follies leave, And talk with wisdom where my Daphnis lies. There let me sleep forgotten in the clay, TO A FOUNTAIN. O Fountain of the wood! whose glassy wave, Holds to heaven a mirror blue, With whom I've sported on the margin green: Fount of my native wood! thy murmurs greet O state of innocence! O paradise! Where now, ye dear companions of my youth! Do ye tread the walks of life, Thus winged larks forsake their native nest, The merry minstrels of the morn: New to heaven they mount away, And meet again no more. All things decay-the forest like the leaf; But hope's fair visions, and the beams of joy, Ye Naiads, blue-eyed sisters of the wood! And charm the wandering moon. Beheld by poet's eye; inspire my dreams Fount of the forest! in thy poet's lays I ask to bind my brow. DANISH ODE. The great, the glorious deed is done! The raven claps his sable wings; With mighty ale the goblet crown; From danger's front, at battle's eve, The song bursts living from the lyre, Music's the med'cine of the mind; The cloud comes o'er the beam of light; Send round the shell, the feast prolong, SWEET FRAGRANT BOWER. Sweet fragrant bow'r, where first I met I fancy still her form I see, From my rack'd mind depart. Her charming tongue such pleasure gave, As charm'd each shepherd to her bow'r, To kindred angels in the sky; THE WISH. Gie me not riches over much, Nor pinching poverty, Jo, For how can man be better plac'd Or what can be a sweeter feast Health mak's a sweet desert, Jo; Another blessing I'd implore, To hae a lovely fair, Jo; At gloamin', whan my task is o'er, 20 Delightful visitant! with thee I hail the time of flowers, The school-boy wand'ring in the wood Soon as the pea puts on the bloom, An annual guest in other lands, Sweet bird thy bow'r is ever green, Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, No winter in thy year! O could I fly, I'd fly with thee: - Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove! What time the daisy decks the green, Delightful visitant! with thee I hail the time of flowers, The school-boy wandering through the wood, Starts, the new voice of spring to hear, And imitates thy lay. What time the pea puts on the bloom, Thou fliest thy vocal vale, An annual guest in other lands, Another spring to hail. Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green, Thy sky is ever clear; Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, No winter in thy year! O could I fly, I'd fly with thee! An additional interest cannot but be felt in Bruce's ode if it, as Archbishop Trench thinks, suggested to a inuch greater poet one of his most lovely lyrics. "It was," he says, "a favourite with Wordsworth, and one who listens attentively may catch a faint prelude of his immortal ode addressed to the same bird."-ED. HECTOR MACNEILL. BORN 1746- DIED 1818. by no means prosperous circumstances. Taking up his residence at Stirling, he entered upon a literary career, by publishing in 1789 "The Harp, a Legendary Tale," which met with but little success. During the succeeding ten years he divided his time between Jamaica and Scotland, at the expiration of which period he found a friend in the person of Mr. John Graham, a West India planter and former employer, who, at his death, left the poet an annuity of £100 per annum. It was on this gentleman's estate of Three-Mile-River that Macneill wrote "The Pastoral, or Lyric Muse of Scotland." He now took up his abode at Edinburgh, where he was admitted to the literary circles of that city, and numbered among his friends James Sibbald, and Mrs. Hamilton, authoress of The Cottagers of Glenburnie. HECTOR MACNEILL was born October 22, | returned to his native land in poor health and 1746, at Rosebank, on the Esk, near Roslin; and, to quote his own words, "amidst the murmur of streams and the shades of Hawthornden may be said to have inhaled with life the atmosphere of a poet." He was sent by his father, Captain Macneill, to the grammarschool at Stirling, then under Dr. David Doig, to whom in after-life the poet, dedicated his popular composition "Scotland's Scaith, or the History of Will and Jean," of which 10,000 copies were sold in a single month. His father's circumstances being such that he was unable to give his son a university education, he, at the age of fourteen, was withdrawn from his studies, and went to reside at Bristol with his cousin, an opulent West India trader, who had noticed the shrewdness of his young namesake, and had engaged to provide for him. He soon after made a trial of sea-life, but this proving distasteful, he entered the counting-house of a merchant in the island of St. Christopher, to whom he had been recommended by his kinsman. He soon made himself so valuable an assistant, that there was every prospect of his being admitted to a partnership, when the whole tenor of his life was altered by a single imprudent kiss! His employer having admitted him to his house on terms of intimacy, Macneill so far forgot himself as to snatch a kiss from the lips of the merchant's young and beautiful wife, with whom he was seated in the garden. For this indiscretion he was dismissed. The poet being now in more easy circumstances, added to his income by systematic literary efforts. He wrote several novels, and for a time was the editor of the Scots Magazine. In 1801 he published an edition of his poems in two volumes, which was followed by a second in 1806, and a third in 1812. Although himself possessing "The vision and the faculty divine," Macneill invariably warned all aspirants for poetic fame against embarking in the precarious pursuit of writing poetry as a means of support, or indeed to trusting to authorship of Macneill remained in the West Indies for any kind. Writing to a friend in 1813 he nearly a quarter of a century, under circum- says, "Accumulating years and infirmities stances less prosperous than those in which he are beginning to operate very sensibly upon began his career there. He appears to have me now, and yearly do I experience their filled various subordinate positions, and at one increasing influence. period to have been the manager of a sugar amusement. Reading soon fatigues and loses plantation in Jamaica, in which capacity he its zest, composition never, till over-exertion prepared a pamphlet in defence of the system reminds me of my imprudence." A few years of slavery in the West Indies. It was pub- after penning these lines the poet passed away, lished in 1788, about which time Macneill | March 15, 1818, in his seventy-second year. My pen is my chief |