ELEGANT EXTRACTS. PART V. Odes. ON THE POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS OF THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND: CONSIDERED AS THE SUBJECT OF POETRY. Inscribed to Mr. John Home. HOME! thou return'st from Thames, whose naiads long Have seen thee lingering with a fond delay, Mid those soft friends whose hearts, some fu ture day, Shall melt, perhaps, to hear thy tragic song. [side; And joy untainted, with his destined bride. A gentleman of the name of Barrow, who introduced Home to Collins. VOL. III. 1 B Go! nor regardless, while these numbers boast 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. There every herd, by sad experience, knows How, wing'd with Fate, their elf-shot arrows fly, When the sick ewe her summer food foregoes, 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 preserved, how often mayst thou hear, Where to the pole the Boreal mountains run, Taught by the father, to his listening son, [ear. Strange lays, whose power had charm'd a Spenser's At every pause, before thy mind possess'd, Their matted hair with boughs fantastic crown'd: Whether thou bidd'st the well taught hind repeat The choral dirge that mourns some chieftain brave, When every shrieking maid her bosom beat, grave! 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, [arms. And hostile brothers met, to prove each other's 'Tis thine to sing how, framing hideous spells, With their own visions oft astonish'd droop, A summer hat, built in the high part of the mountains, to tend their flocks in the warm season, when the pasture is fine. And artless, oft like moody madness, stare To monarchs dear, some hundred miles astray, In the first year of the first George's reign, And battles raged 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 raved! divining, through their second sight+, Pale, red Culloden, where these hopes were drown'd! Illustrious William +! Britain's guardian name! One William saved 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: By young Aurora Collins undoubtedly meant the first appearance 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. ↑ Second sight is the term that is used for the divination of the Highlanders. The late Duke of Cumberland, who defeated the Pretender at the battle of Culloden. |