Melting it flows, pure, murmuring, strong, and clear, And fills the' impassion'd heart, and wins the' harmonious ear! All hail, ye scenes that o'er my soul prevail; Or o'er your stretching heaths, by Fancy led: Where Jonson ‡ sat in Drummond's classic shade; Or crop, from Tiviotdale, each lyric flower, And mourn, on Yarrow's banks, where Willy's laid! Meantime, ye powers that on the plains which bore * Three rivers in Scotland. COLLINS. + Valleys. Ben Jonson paid a visit on foot, in 1619, to the Scottish peet Drummond, at his seat of Hawthornden, within four miles of Edinburgh. See an account of a conversation which passed between them, in Drummond's Works, 1711. Barrow, it seems, was at the Edinburgh University, which is in the county of Lothian. VOL. III. с TO SUPERSTITION. I. 1. 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, Clot his shaggy mane with gore, With flashing fury bid his eyeballs shine, breast* Thy touch, thy deadening touch has steel'd the 1. 2. When, with a frown that froze the peopled earth +, Ha! what withering phantoms glare! As blows the blast with many a sudden swell, At each dead pause what shrill toned voices yell! * An allusion to the sacrifice of Iphigenia. + Lucretius, I. 63. The sheeted spectre, rising from the tomb, That veils its genius from the vulgar eye: 1. 3. O'er solid seas, where Winter reigns, Smit by the scorchings of the noontide beam. She hurls the torch! she fans the fire! She clasps her lord to part no more, * When we were ready to set out, our host muttered some words in the ear of our cattle.-See a Voyage to the North of Europe in 1653. + The Bramins expose their bodies to the intense heat of the sun. Ridens moriar. The conclusion of an old Runic Ode. In the Vedas, or sacred writings of the Hindoos, it is written, She who dies with her husband shall live for ever with him in heaven.' O'ershadowing Scotia's desert coast, And, wrapp'd in clouds, in tempests toss'd, While the lone shepherd, near the shipless maint, Sees o'er her hills advance the long-drawn funeral train. II. 1. Thou spakest, and lo! a new creation glow'd. And at its base the trembling nations bow'd. Grasp'd the globe with iron hand. Circled with seats of bliss, the Lord of Light The indignant pyramid sublimely towers, II. 2. Round their rude ark old Egypt's sorcerers rise! *The Fates of the Northern Mythology.-See Mallet's Antiquities. † An allusion to the second sight. See that fine description of the sudden animation of the Palladium, in the second book of the Æneid. The bull, Apis. Clouds of incense woo thy smile, But ah! what myriads claim the bended knee † ! Go, count the busy drops that swell the sea. Proud land! what eye can trace thy mystic lore, Lock'd up in characters as dark as night? What eye those long long labyrinths dare explore §, To which the parted soul oft wings her flight; Again to visit her cold cell of clay, [decay! Charm'd with perennial sweets, and smiling at II. 3. On yon hoar summit, mildly bright || High o'er the world the white-robed Magi gaze Start at each blue portentous blaze, Each flame that flits with adverse spire; The God! The God!' the Sybil cries. The crocodile. + So numerous were the Deities of Egypt, that, according to an ancient proverb, it was in that country less difficult to find a god than a man. The Hieroglyphics. The catacombs, in which the bodies of the earliest generations yet remain without corruption, by virtue of the gums that embalmed them. The Persians,' says Herodotus, reject the use of temples, altars, and statues. The tops of the highest mountains are the places chosen for sacrifices." I. 131. The elements, and more particularly fire, were the objects of their religious reverence. An imitation of some wonderful lines in the Iliad. |