HOME! thou returns't from Thames, whose naiads Have seen thee lingering with a fond delay, [long Mid those soft friends, whose hearts some future Shall melt, perhaps, to hear thy tragic song. [day, Go, not unmindful of that cordial youth,*

Whom, long endear'd, thou leav'st by Lavant's Together let us wish him lasting truth,

[side;

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: 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.

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

There, every herd, by sad experience, knows How, wing'd with fate, their elf-shot arrows fly, When the sick ewe her summer food forgoes,

Or, stretch'd on earth, the heart-smit heifers lie.
Such airy beings awe the' 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
At evere pause, before thy mind possess'd, [ear.
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 coral dirge, that mourns some chieftain

brave,

When every shrieking maid her bosom beat,
And strew'd with choicest herbs his scentedgrave!
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.

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

'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 en-
With their own visions oft astonish'd droop, [gross,
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 destin'd 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.

To monarchs dear,* some hundred miles astray, Oft have they seen Fate give the fatal blow!

*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, were 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 penons sweep: Or in the arch'd cave, where deep and dark

The broad unbroken billows heave and swell, In horrid musings wrapt, they sit to mark

The labouirng moon; or list the nightly yell

The seer, in Sky, shriek'd as the blood did flow, When headless Charles warm on the scaffold lay! As Boreas threw his young Aurora* forth,

In the first year of the first George's reign, And battles rag'd in welkin of the North,

They mourn'd in air, fell fell rebellion slain ! And as of late, they joy'd in Preston's fight,

Saw, at sad Falkirk, all their hopes near crown'd! They rav'd, divining, through their second sight. Pale, red Culloden, where these hopes were drown'd!

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;
Or, if the drifted snow perplex the way,
With treacherous gleam he lures the fated wight,
And leads him floundering on and quite astray.'

* By young Aurora, Collins undoubtedly meant the first ap pearance of the northern lights, which happened about the year 1715; at least, it is most highly probable, from this peculiar circumstance, that no ancient writer whatever has taken any notice of them, nor even any one modern, previous to the above period.

+ Secoud sight is the term that is used for the divination of the Highlanders.

Illustrious William!* Britain's guardian name!
One William sav'd us from a tyrant's stroke:
He, for a sceptre, gain'd heroic fame,

[broke, But thou, more glorious, Slavery's chain hast To reign a private man, and bow to Freedom's yoke!

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 murky night, o'er fen and lake,

He glows to draw you downward to your death, In his bewitch'd, 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,

Nor trust the guidance of that faithless light: For watchful, lurking, mid the' unrustling reed, At those murk 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 unbless'd, indeed! Whom late bewilder'd in the dank, dark fen, Far from his flocks, and smoking hamlet, then! To that sad spot where hums the sedgy weed:

* The late Duke of Cumberland, who defeated the Pretender at the battle of Culloden.

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