5.

Years have roll'd on, Loch na Garr, since I left you;
Years must elapse ere I tread you again;
Nature of verdure and flowers has bereft

you,

Yet, still, are you dearer than Albion's plain : England! thy beauties are tame and domestic, To one who has roved on the mountains afar ; Oh! for the crags that are wild and majestic, The steep frowning glories of dark Loch na Garry

TO ROMANCE.

I.

PARENT of golden dreams, Romance!
Auspicious Queen of childish joys!
Who lead'st along, in airy dance,
Thy votive train of girls and boys;
At length, in spells no longer bound,
I break the fetters of my youth ;
No more I tread thy mystic round,

But leave thy realms for those of Truth.

2.

And, yet, 'tis hard to quit the dreams
Which haunt the unsuspicious soul,
Where every nymph a goddess seems,
Whose eyes through rays immortal roll;
While Fancy holds her boundless reign,
And all assume a varied hue,

When Virgins seem no longer vain,

And even Woman's smiles are true.

3.

And must we own thee but a name,

And from thy hall of clouds descend;
Nor find a Sylph in every dame,
A Pylades in every friend?

But leave, at once, thy realms of air,
To mingling bands of fairy elves:
Confess that woman's false as fair,

And Friends have feelings for-themselves.

* It is hardly necessary to add, that Pylades was the companion of Orestes, and a partner in one of those friendships, which, with those of Achilles and Patroclus, Nisus and Euryalus, Damon and Pythias, have been handed down to posterity as remarkable instances of attachments which, in all probability, never existed, beyond the imagination of the poet, the page of an historian, or modern novelist.

4.

With shame, I own, I've felt thy sway,
Repentant, now thy reign is o'er;
No more thy precepts I obey,

No more on fancied pinions soar :
Fond fool! to love a sparkling eye,
And think that eye to Truth was dear,
To trust a passing wanton's sigh,

And melt beneath a wanton's tear.

5.

Romance! disgusted with deceit,
Far from thy motley court I fly,
Where Affectation holds her seat,
And sickly Sensibility;

Whose silly tears can never flow

For any pangs excepting thine; Who turns aside from real woe,

To steep in dew thy gaudy shrine :

6.

Now join with sable Sympathy,

With cypress crown'd, array'd in weeds, Who heaves with thee her simple sigh, Whose breast for every bosom bleeds;

VOL. I.

6

And call thy sylvan female quire,

To mourn a swain for ever gone, Who once could glow with equal fire, But bends not now before thy throne.

7.

Ye genial Nymphs, whose ready tears,
On all occasions, swiftly flow;

Whose bosoms heave with fancied fears, With fancied flames and phrenzy glow; absent name,

Say, will

you mourn my

Apostate from your gentle train?

An infant Bard, at least, may claim
From you a sympathetic strain.

8.

Adieu! fond race, a long adieu! .
The hour of fate is hovering nigh;
Even now the gulf appears in view,
Where unlamented you must lie:
Oblivion's blackening lake is seen

Convulsed by gales you cannot weather, Where you, and eke your gentle queen,

Alas! must perish altogether.

ELEGY ON NEWSTEAD ABBEY.*

It is the voice of years that are gone! they roll before me with all their deeds.

OSSIAN.

NEWSTEAD! fast falling, once resplendent dome!
Religion's shrine! repentant HENRY'S † pride!
Of Warriors, Monks, and Dames the cloister'd
tomb,

Whose pensive shades around thy ruins glide :

Hail! to thy pile! more honour'd in thy fall,
Than modern mansions in their pillar'd state ;
Proudly majestic frowns thy vaulted hall,
Scowling defiance on the blasts of fate.

No mail-clad Serfs,§ obedient to their Lord,
In grim array, the crimson cross** demand;

* As one poem on this subject is printed in the beginning, the author had originally no intention of inserting the following: it is now added at the particular request of some friends.

Henry II. founded Newstead, soon after the murder of THOMAS A BECKET.

This word is used by WALTER SCOTT, in his poem, "The Wild Huntsman," as synonymous with Vassal.

** The Red Cross was the badge of the Crusaders.