Slow o'er the midnight wave it swung, Then couched him down beside the hind, INTRODUCTION TO CANTO THIRD TO WILLIAM ERSKINE, ESQ. Ashestiel, Ettrick Forest. LIKE April morning clouds, that pass Life's checkered scene of joy and sorrow; } Now winding slow its silver train, And almost slumbering on the plain; Like breezes of the autumn day, Whose voice inconstant dies away, And ever swells again as fast When the ear deems its murmur past; And pleased, we listen as the breeze Heaves its wild sigh through Autumn trees: Then, wild as cloud, or stream, or gale, Flow on, flow unconfined, my tale! Need I to thee, dear Erskine, tell In sounds now lowly, and now strong, Oft, when 'mid such capricious chime Go, and to tame thy wandering course, Instructive of the feebler bard, Still from the grave their voice is heard;From them, and from the paths they showed, Choose honoured guide and practised road; Nor ramble on through brake and maze, With harpers rude of barbarous days. 'Or deem'st thou not our later time Yields topic meet for classic rhyme? Hast thou no elegiac verse For BRUNSWICK'S venerable hearse? Oh, hero of that glorious time, When, with unrivalled light sublime, — Thou couldst not live to see her beam Lamented chief! – not thine the power To save in that presumptuous hour When Prussia hurried to the field, And snatched the spear, but left the shield! Valour and skill 't was thine to try, And, tried in vain, 't was thine to die. Ill had it seemed thy silver hair The last, the bitterest pang to share, On thee relenting Heaven bestows For honoured life an honoured close; And when revolves, in time's sure change, The hour of Germany's revenge, When, breathing fury for her sake, Some new Arminius shall awake, Her champion, ere he strike, shall come 'Or of the Red-Cross hero' teach, Its votaries to the shattered walls Which the grim Turk, besmeared with blood, Or that whose thundering voice could wake When stubborn Russ and mettled Swede On the warped wave their death-game played; 'Or if to touch such chord be thine, Restore the ancient tragic line, And emulate the notes that rung 1 Sir Sidney Smith. Sir Ralph Abercromby. |