WILLIAM WATSON.

* * * * *

SCOTLAND.

FROM “THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL,” CANTO VI.

  O Caledonia! stern and wild,
  Meet nurse for a poetic child! 
  Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
  Land of the mountain and the flood,
  Land of my sires! what mortal hand
  Can e’er untie the filial band
  That knits me to thy rugged strand? 
  Still, as I view each well-known scene,
  Think what is now, and what hath been,
  Seems, as to me, of all bereft,
  Sole friends thy woods and streams were left;
  And thus I love them better still,
  Even in extremity of ill. 
  By Yarrow’s stream still let me stray,
  Though none should guide my feeble way;
  Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break,
  Although it chilled my withered cheek;
  Still lay my head by Teviot stone,
  Though there, forgotten and alone,
  The bard may draw his parting groan.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

* * * * *

THE BARD.

A PINDARIC ODE.

I

  “Ruin seize thee, ruthless King! 
    Confusion on thy banners wait;
  Tho’ fanned by Conquest’s crimson wing,
    They mock the air with idle state,
  Helm, nor hauberk’s twisted mail,
  Nor e’en thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail
    To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
    From Cambria’s curse, from Cambria’s tears!”
  Such were the sounds that o’er the crested pride
    Of the first Edward scattered wild dismay,
  As down the steep of Snowdon’s shaggy side
    He wound with toilsome march his long array. 
  Stout Glo’ster stood aghast in speechless trance: 
  “To arms!” cried Mortimer, and couched his quiv’ring lance.

    On a rock, whose haughty brow
  Frowns o’er cold Conway’s foaming flood,
    Robed in the sable garb of woe,
  With haggard eyes the poet stood: 
  (Loose his beard, and hoary hair
  Streamed, like a meteor, to the troubled air)
  And with a master’s hand, and prophet’s fire,
  Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre. 
  “Hark how each giant oak, and desert cave,
    Sighs to the torrent’s awful voice beneath! 
  O’er thee, O King! their hundred arms they wave,
    Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe;
  Vocal no more, since Cambria’s fatal day,
  To high-born Hoel’s harp, or soft Llewellyn’s lay.

    “Cold is Cadwallo’s tongue,
    That hushed the stormy main: 
  Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed: 
    Mountains, ye mourn in vain
    Modred, whose magic song
  Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topt head. 
    On dreary Arvon’s shore they lie,
  Smeared with gore, and ghastly pale;
  Far, far aloof th’ affrighted ravens