An Ode On The Popular Superstitions Of The Highlands Of Scotland, Considered As The Subject Of Poetry
By William Collins
Home, thou returnst from Thames, whose naiads long
Have seen thee lingring with a fond delay
Mid those soft friends, whose hearts, some future day,
Shall melt, perhaps, to hear thy tragic song.
Go, not unmindful of that cordial youth
Whom, long endeard, thou leavst by Lavants side;
Together let us wish him lasting truth,
And joy untainted, with his destind bride.
Go! nor regardless, while these numbers boast
My short-livd 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 turnst, whose evry vale
Shall prompt the poet, and his song demand:
To thee thy copious subjects neer shall fail;
Thou needst but take the pencil to thy hand,
And paint what all believe who own thy genial land.
There must thou wake perforce thy Doric quill;
Tis Fancys land to which thou settst 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 bowl allots;
By night they sip it round the cottage door,
While airy minstrels warble jocund notes.
There every herd, by sad experience, knows
How, wingd with fate, their elf-shot arrows fly,
When the sick ewe her summer food forgoes,
Or, stretchd on earth, the heart-smit heifers lie.
Such airy beings awe th untutord swain:
Nor thou, though learnd, 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.
Evn yet preservd, how often mayst thou hear,
Where to the pole the Boreal mountains run,
Taught by the father to his listning son,
Strange lays, whose power had charmd a Spensers ear.
At evry pause, before thy mind possest,
Old Runic bards shall seem to rise around,
With uncouth lyres, in many-coloured vest,
Their matted hair with boughs fantastic crownd:
Whether thou biddst the well-taught hind repeat
The choral dirge that mourns some chieftain brave,
When evry shrieking maid her bosom beat,
And strewd with choicest herbs his scented grave;
Or whether, sitting in the shepherds shiel,
Thou hearst some sounding tale of wars alarms;
When at the bugles call, with fire and steel,
The sturdy clans pourd forth their bony swarms,
And hostile brothers met to prove each others arms.
Tis thine to sing, how, framing hideous spells,
In Skys lone isle, the gifted wizard seer,
Lodged in the wintry cave with [fates fell spear,]
Or in the depth of Uists dark forest dwells:
How they, whose sight such dreary dreams engross,
With their own visions oft astonishd droop.
When, oer the watry strath, or quaggy moss,
They see the gliding ghosts unbodied troop.
Or, if in sports, or on the festive green,
Their [piercing] 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.
[Twenty-five lines in this section are missing from available
manuscripts]
What though far off, from some dark dell espied,
His glimmring mazes cheer th excursive sight,
Yet turn, ye wandrers, turn your steps aside,
8Nor trust the guidance of that faithless light;
For watchful, lurking, mid th unrustling reed,
At those mirk 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, oer all unblest indeed!
Whom late bewilderd in the dank, dark fen,
Far from his flocks and smoking hamlet then!
To that sad spot [his wayward fate shall lead]:
On him, enragd, the fiend in angry mood,
Shall never look with pitys kind concern,
But instant, furious, raise the whelming flood
Oer its drownd bank, forbidding all return.
Or, if he meditate his wishd escape,
To some dim hill that seems uprising near,
To his faint eye the grim and grisly shape,
In all its terrors clad, shall wild appear.
Meantime the watry surge shall round him rise,
Pourd sudden forth from evry swelling source.
What now remains but tears and hopeless sighs?
His fear-shook limbs have lost their youthly force,
And down the waves he floats, a pale and breathless, corse.
For him in vain his anxious wife shall wait,
Or wander forth to meet him on his way;
For him in vain at to-fall of the day,
His babes shall linger at th unclosing gate.
Ah, neer shall he return! Alone, if night
Her travelld limbs in broken slumbers steep,
With drooping willows dressd, his mournful sprite
Shall visit sad, perchance, her silent sleep:
Then he, perhaps, with moist and watry hand,
Shall fondly seem to press her shuddring cheek,
And with his blue-swoln face before her stand,
And, shivring cold, these piteous accents speak:
Pursue, dear wife, thy daily toils pursue,
At dawn or dusk, industrious as before;
Nor eer of me one hapless thought renew,
While I lie weltring on the osierd shore,
Drownd by the kelpies wrath, nor eer shall aid thee more!
Unbounded is thy range; with varied style
Thy Muse may, like those feathry tribes which spring
From their rude rocks, extend her skirting wing
Round the moist marge of each cold Hebrid isle.
To that hoar pile, which still its ruin shows:
In whose small vaults a pigmy-folk is found,
Whose bones the delver with his spade upthrows,
And culls them, wondring, from the hallowd ground!
Or thither, where, beneath the showry west,
The mighty kings of three fair realms are laid:
Once foes, perhaps, together now they rest,
No slaves revere them, and no wars invade:
Yet frequent now, at midnights solemn hour,
The rifted mounds their yawning cells unfold,
And forth the monarchs stalk with sovreign powr,
In pageant robes, and wreathd with sheeny gold,
And on their twilight tombs aerial council hold.
But, O! oer all, forget not Kildas race,
On whose bleak rocks, which brave the wasting tides,
Fair Natures daughter, Virtue, yet abides.
Go, just, as they, their blameless manners trace!
Then to my ear transmit some gentle song,
Of those whose lives are yet sincere and plain,
Their bounded walks the rugged cliffs along,
And all their prospect but the wintry main.
With sparing temprance, at the needful time,
They drain the sainted spring; or, hunger-prest,
Along th Atlantic rock undreading climb,
And of its eggs despoil the solans nest.
Thus blest in primal innocence, they live,
Sufficd and happy with that frugal fare
Which tasteful toil and hourly danger give.
Hard is their shallow soil, and bleak and bare;
Nor ever vernal bee was heard to murmur there!
Nor needst thou blush that such false themes engage
Thy gentle mind, of fairer stores possest;
For not alone they touch the village breast,
But filld in elder time th historic page.
There Shakespeares self, with evry garland crownd,
[Flew to those fairy climes his fancy sheen],
In musing hour, his wayward sisters found,
And with their terrors drest the magic scene.
From them he sung, when mid his bold design,
Before the Scot afflicted and aghast,
The shadowy kings of Banquos fated line
Through the dark cave in gleamy pageant passd.
Proceed, nor quit the tales which, simply told
Could once so well my answring bosom pierce;
Proceed, in forceful sounds, and colours bold,
The native legends of thy land rehearse;
To such adapt thy lyre and suit thy powerful verse.
In scenes like these, which, daring to depart
From sober truth, are still to nature true,
And call forth fresh delight to Fancys view,
Th heroic muse employd her Tassos art!
How have I trembled, when, at Tancreds stroke,
Its gushing blood the gaping cypress pourd;
When each live plant with mortal accents spoke,
And the wild blast upheavd the vanishd sword!
How have I sat, when pipd the pensive wind,
To hear his harp by British Fairfax strung;
Prevailing poet! whose undoubting mind
Believd the magic wonders which he sung!
Hence, at each sound, imagination glows;
[Hence, at each picture, vivid life starts here!]
Hence his warm lay with softest sweetness flows;
Melting its flows, pure, numrous, strong, and clear,
And fills th impassiond heart, and wins the harmonious ear!
All hail, ye scenes that oer my soul prevail!
Ye [spacious] friths and lakes, which, far away,
Are by smooth Annan filld or pastral Tay,
Or Dons romantic springs at distance, hail!
The time shall come when I, perhaps, may tread
Your lowly glens, oerhung with spreading broom;
Or, oer your stretching heaths, by fancy led;
[Or oer your mountains creep, in awful gloom!]
Then will I dress once more the faded bowr,
Where Jonson sat in Drummonds [classic] shade;
Or crop, from Tiviots dale, each [lyric flower,]
And mourn, on Yarrows banks, [where Willys laid!]
Meantime, ye Powrs, that on the plains which bore
The cordial youth, on Lothians plains, attend,
Whereer he dwell, on hill, or lowly muir,
To him I lose, your kind protection lend,
And, touchd with love like mine, preserve my absent friend!