Dear is my little native vale, The ring-dove builds and murmurs there; Close by my cot she tells her tale To every passing villager. The squirrel leaps from tree to tree, And shells his nuts at liberty....
Love, under Friendship's vesture white, Laughs, his little limbs concealing; And oft in sport, and oft in spite, Like Pity meets the dazzled sight, Smiles thro' his tears revealing. ...
Hence, to the realms of Night, dire Demon, hence! Thy chain of adamant can bind That little world, the human mind, And sink its noblest powers to impotence. Wake the lion's loudest roar,...
Oh could my Mind, unfolded in my page, Enlighten climes and mould a future age; There as it glow'd, with noblest frenzy fraught, Dispense the treasures of exalted thought;...
The Sailor sighs as sinks his native shore, As all its lessening turrets bluely fade; He climbs the mast to feast his eye once more, And busy Fancy fondly lends her aid. ...
And dost thou still, thou mass of breathing stone, (Thy giant limbs to night and chaos hurl'd) Still sit as on the fragment of a world; Surviving all, majestic and alone?...
Well may you sit within, and, fond of grief, Look in each other's face, and melt in tears. Well may you shun all counsel, all relief. Oh she was great in mind, tho' young in years! ...
Yes, 'tis the pulse of life! my fears were vain! I wake, I breathe, and am myself again. Still in this nether world; no seraph yet! Nor walks my spirit, when the sun is set,...
There, in that bed so closely curtain'd round, Worn to a shade, and wan with slow decay, A father sleeps! Oh hush'd be every sound! Soft may we breathe the midnight hours away! ...
Blue was the loch, [1] the clouds were gone, Ben-Lomond in his glory shone, When, Luss, I left thee; when the breeze Bore me from thy silver sands, Thy kirk-yard wall among the trees,...