[104] Published at Glasgow, 1836.

[105] These are his descriptions of “The Drunkard,” “The Glutton,” and “The Good and Wicked Pastor.”

A CLAGIONN.

THE SKULL.

    As I sat by the grave, at the brink of its cave
      Lo! a featureless skull on the ground;
    The symbol I clasp, and detain in my grasp,
      While I turn it around and around. 
    Without beauty or grace, or a glance to express
      Of the bystander nigh, a thought;
    Its jaw and its mouth are tenantless both,
      Nor passes emotion its throat. 
    No glow on its face, no ringlets to grace
      Its brow, and no ear for my song;
    Hush’d the caves of its breath, and the finger of death
      The raised features hath flatten’d along. 
    The eyes’ wonted beam, and the eyelids’ quick gleam—­
      The intelligent sight, are no more;
    But the worms of the soil, as they wriggle and coil,
      Come hither their dwellings to bore. 
    No lineament here is left to declare
      If monarch or chief art thou;
    Alexander the Brave, as the portionless slave
      That on dunghill expires, is as low. 
    Thou delver of death, in my ear let thy breath
      Who tenants my hand, unfold;
    That my voice may not die without a reply,
      Though the ear it addresses is cold. 
    Say, wert thou a May,[106] of beauty a ray,
      And flatter’d thine eye with a smile? 
    Thy meshes didst set, like the links of a net,
      The hearts of the youth to wile? 
    Alas every charm that a bosom could warm
      Is changed to the grain of disgust! 
    Oh, fie on the spoiler for daring to soil her
      Gracefulness all in the dust! 
    Say, wise in the law, did the people with awe
      Acknowledge thy rule o’er them—­
    A magistrate true, to all dealing their due,
      And just to redress or condemn? 
    Or was righteousness sold for handfuls of gold
      In the scales of thy partial decree;
    While the poor were unheard when their suit they preferr’d,
      And appeal’d their distresses to thee? 
    Say, once in thine hour, was thy medicine of power
      To extinguish the fever of ail? 
    And seem’d, as the pride of thy leech-craft e’en tried
      O’er omnipotent death to prevail? 
    Alas, that thine aid should have ever betray’d
      Thy hope when the need was thine own;
    What salve or annealing sufficed for thy healing
      When the hours of thy portion were flown? 
    Or—­wert thou a hero, a leader to glory,
      While armies thy truncheon obey’d;
    To victory cheering, as thy foemen careering
      In flight, left their mountains of dead? 
    Was thy valiancy laid, or unhilted thy blade,
      When came onwards in battle array
    The sepulchre-swarms, ensheathed