Page images
PDF
EPUB

How lost were my days 'till I met wi' my Jessie,
The sports o' the city seem'd foolish and vain,
I ne'er saw a nymph I would ca' my dear lassie,

'Till charm'd with sweet Jessie, the flow'r o' Dumblane. Though mine were the station o' loftiest grandeur, Amidst its profusion I 'd languish in pain;

And reckon as naething the height o' its splendour,
If wanting sweet Jessie, the flow'r o' Dumblane.

THE BRAES O' GLENIFFER.

Keen blaws the wind o'er the Braes o' Gleniffer,
The auld castle's turrets are cover'd wi' snaw;
How chang'd frae the time when I met wi' my lover
Amang the broom bushes by Stanley green
shaw:
The wild flow'rs o' simmer were spread a' sae bonnie,
The mavis sang sweet frae the green birken tree:
But far to the camp they hae march'd my dear Johnnie,
And now it is winter wi' nature and me.

Then ilk thing around us was blithesome and cheery,
Then ilk thing around us was bonny and braw;
Now naething is heard but the wind whistling dreary,
And naething is seen but the wide-spreading snaw.
The trees are a' bare, and the birds mute and dowie,
They shake the cauld drifts from their wings as they flee,
And chirp out their plaints, seeming wae for my Johnnie,
'Tis winter wi' them, and 'tis winter wi' me.

Yon cauld sleety cloud skiffs alang the bleak mountain,
And shakes the dark firs on the stey rocky brae,
While down the deep glen bawls the snaw-flooded fountain,
That murmur'd sae sweet to my laddie and me.
'Tis no its loud roar on the wintry wind swellin',
'Tis no the cauld blast brings the tears i' my e'e,
For, O gin I saw my bonnie Scotch callan,

The dark days o' winter were simmer to me!

[blocks in formation]

Though doom'd to cross the ocean,
And face the proud insulting foe,
Thou hast my soul's devotion,

My heart is thine where'er I go;
Ah! Sheelah, thou 'rt my darling,
My heart is thine where'er I go.

When toss'd upon the billow,

And angry tempests round me blow, Let not the gloomy willow

O'ershade thy lovely lily brow: But mind the seaman's story,

Sweet William and his charming Sue;

I'll soon return with glory,

And, like sweet William, wed thee too: Ah! Sheelah, thou 'rt my darling,

My heart is thine where'er I go.

Think on our days of pleasure,

While wand'ring by the Shannon side,
When summer days give leisure
To stray amidst their flow'ry pride:
And while thy faithful lover

Is far upon the stormy main,
Think, when the wars are over,
Those golden days shall come again.

Farewell, ye lofty mountains,

Your flow'ry wilds we wont to rove;

Ye woody glens and fountains,

The dear retreats of mutual love.— Alas! we now must sever

O! Sheelah, to thy vows be true!

My heart is thine for ever—

One fond embrace, and then adieu; Ah! Sheelah, thou 'rt my darling,

One fond embrace, and then adieu.

313.-ART AND NATURE.

BYRON

[THE Poets, in general, are amongst the best of the Prose writers. In these volumes we have given many examples of the prose of poets. We add one of Byron. Before the close of this little work we shall give one specimen of Byron's poetry, with a brief notice of his life and writings. The following extract is from his controversial pamphlet on the merits of Pope-a controversy in which some nonsense was said on both sides, but which had the merit of being less dull than most disputes, literary or political.]

[ocr errors]

Mr. Bowles asserts that Campbell's "Ship of the Line” * derives all its poetry, not from "art," but from "nature." "Take away the waves, the winds, the sun, &c., &c., one will become a stripe of blue bunting; and the other a piece of coarse canvas on three tall poles." Very true; take away "the waves," "the winds," and there will be no ship at all, not only for poetical but for any other purpose; and take away "the sun," and we must read Mr. Bowles's pamphlet by candlelight. But the "poetry" of the "Ship" does not depend on "the waves," &c. ;' on the contrary, the "Ship of the Line" confers its own poetry upon the waters, and heightens theirs. I do not deny, that the “ waves and winds," and above all the sun," are highly poetical; we know it to our cost, by the many descriptions of them in verse: but if the waves bore only the foam upon their bosoms, if the winds wafted only the sea-weed to the shore, if the sun shone neither upon pyramids, nor

66

"Those who have ever witnessed the spectacle of the launching of a ship of the line, will perhaps forgive me for adding this to the examples of the sublime objects of artificial life. Of that spectacle I can never forget the impression, and of having witnessed it reflected from the faces of ten thousand spectators. They seem yet before me. -I sympathize with their deep and silent expectation, and with their final burst of enthusiasm. It was not a vulgar joy, but an affecting national solemnity. When the vast bulwark sprang from her cradle, the calm water on which she swung majestically round gave the imagination a contrast of the stormy element on which she was soon to ride. All the days of battle and the nights of danger which she had to encounter, all the ends of the earth which she had to visit, and all that she had to do and to suffer for her country, rose in awful presentiment before the mind; and when the heart gave her a benediction, it was like one pronounced on a living being."-CAMPBELL's Specimens of British Poets, vol. i. p. 265.

fleets, nor fortresses, would its beams be equally poetical? I think not: the poetry is at least reciprocal. Take away "the Ship of the Line" "swinging round" the "calm water," and the calm water becomes a somewhat monotonous thing to look at, particularly if not transparently clear; witness the thousands who pass by without looking on it at all. What was it attracted the thousands to the launch? They might have seen the poetical "calm water" at Wapping, or in the "London Dock," or in the Paddington Canal, or in a horse-pond, or in a slop basin, or in any other vase. They might have heard the poetical winds howling through the chinks of a pigsty, or the garret window; they might have seen the sun shining on a footman's livery, or on a brass warming pan ; but could the "calm water," or the "wind," or the sun," make all, or any of these “poetical?" I think not. Mr. Bowles admits "the Ship" to be poetical, but only from those accessories: now if they confer poetry so as to make one thing poetical, they would make the other things poetical; the more so, as Mr. Bowles calls a "ship of the line " without them,—that is to say, its "masts and sails and streamers," "blue bunting," and " coarse canvas," and "tall poles." So it is; and porcelain is clay, and man is dust, and flesh is grass, and yet the two latter at least are the subjects of much poesy.

[ocr errors]

Did Mr. Bowles ever gaze upon the sea? I presume that he has, at least upon a sea-piece. Did any painter ever paint the sea only, without the addition of a ship, boat, wreck, or some such adjunct? Is the sea itself a more attractive, a more moral, a more poetical object, with or without a vessel, breaking its vast but fatiguing monotony? Is a storm more poetical without a ship? or, in the poem of the Shipwreck, is it the storm or the ship which most interests? both much undoubtedly; but without the vessel, what should we care for the tempest? It would sink into mere descriptive poetry, which in itself was never esteemed a high order of that art.

I look upon myself as entitled to talk of naval matters, at least to poets-with the exception of Walter Scott, Moore, and Southey, perhaps, who have been voyagers, I have swam more miles than all the rest of them together now living ever sailed, and have lived for months and months on shipboard; and, during the whole period of my life abroad, have scarcely ever passed a month out of sight of the Ocean: besides being brought up from two years till ten on the brink of it. I recollect, when anchored off Cape Sigeum in 1810, in an English

VOL. IV.

X

« PreviousContinue »