GEM of the crimson coloured even,
Companion of retiring day,
Why at the closing gates of heaven,
Beloved star, dost thou delay?
So fair thy pensile beauty burns,
When soft the tear of twilight flows,
So due thy plighted step returns,
To chambers brighter than the rose ;
To peace, to pleasure, and to love
So kind a star thou seem'st to be,
Sure some enamoured orb above
Descends and burns to meet with thee.
Thine is the breathing, blushing hour,
When all unheavenly passions fly;
Chased by the soul subduing power
Of love's delicious witchery.
Oh! sacred to the fall of day,
Queen of propitious stars, appear!
And early rise, and long delay,
When Caroline herself is here
Shine on her chosen green resort,
Where trees the sunward summit crown;
And wanton flowers, that well may court
An angel's feet to tread them down.
Shine on her sweetly scented road,
Thou star of evening's purple dome!
That lead'st the nightingale abroad,
And guid'st the pilgrim to his home,
Shine, where my charmer's sweeter breath
Embalms thy soft exhaling dew;
Where dying winds a sigh bequeath
To kiss her cheek of rosy hue.
Where, winnowed by the gentle air,
Her silken tresses darkly flow,
And fall upon her brows so fair,
Like shadows on the mountain snow.
Thus, ever thus, at day's decline
In converse sweet to wander far,
Oh! bring with thee my Caroline,
And thou shalt be my ruling star!
SOUL of the Poet! wheresoe'er
Reclaimed from earth thy genius plume
Her wings of immortality;
Suspend thy harp in happier spnere,
And with thine influence illume
The gladness of our jubilee.
And fly like fiends from secret spell,
Discord and strife, at Burns's name,
Exorcised by his
memory;
For he was chief of bards that swell
The heart with songs of social flame,
And high delicious revelry.
And Love's own strain to him was giv'n
To warble all its ecstasies,
With Pythian words unsought, unwilled,
Love the surviving gift of Heaven,
The choicest sweet of Paradise
In life's else bitter cup distilled.
Who that has melted o'er his lay
To Mary's soul in Heav'n above,
But pictured sees in fancy strong,
The landscape and the livelong day
That smiled upon their mutual love,-
Who that has felt forgets the song?
Nor skilled one flame alone to fan-
His country's high souled peasantry
What patriot pride he taught !—how much
To weigh the inborn worth of man!
And rustic life and poverty
Grow beautiful beneath his touch.
Him in his clay-built cot* the muse
Entranced and showed him all the forms
Of fairy-light and wizard gloom,
(That only gifted Poet view,)
The Genii of the floods and storms,
And martial shades from glory's tomb.
On Bannock field what thoughts arouse
The Swain whom Burns's song inspires?
Beat not his Caledonian veins,
As o'er the heroic turf he ploughs,
With all the spirit of his sires,
And all their scorn of death and chains?
* Burns was born in a Clay cottage, which his father had built with his own hands.
And see the Scottish exile tanned,
By many a far and foreign clime,
Bend o'er his homeborn verse and weep,
In memory of his native land,
With love that scorns the lapse of time,
And ties that stretch beyond the deep.
Encamped by Indian rivers wild
The soldier resting on his arms,
In Burns's carrol sweet recalls
The scenes that blest him when a child,
And glows and gladdens at the charms
Of Scotia's woods and waterfalls.
O deem not midst this worldly strife,
An idle art the poet brings,
Let high Philosophy control
And sages calm the stream of life,
'Tis he refines its fountain springs,
The nobler passions of the soul.
It is the muse that consecrates
The native banner of the brave,
Unfurling at the trumpet's breath,
Rose, thistle, harp; 'tis she elates
To sweep the field or ride the wave,
A sunburst in the storm of death.
And thou, young hero, when thy pall
Is crossed with mournful sword and plume,
When public grief begins to fade,
And only tears of kindred fall,
Who but the Bard shall dress thy tomb,
And greet with fame thy gallant shade?
Such was the soldier,-Burns forgive
That sorrows of mine own intrude,
In strains to thy great memory due.
In verse like thine, Oh! could he live,
The friend I mourned-the brave, the good-
Edward that died at Waterloo !*
Farewell, high chief of Scottish song,
That could'st alternately impart
Wisdom and rapture in thy page,
And brand each vice with satire strong,
Whose lines are mottoes of the heart,
Whose truths electrify the sage.
Farewell, and ne'er may envy dare
To ring one baleful poison drop
From the crushed laurels of thy bust
But while the lark sings sweet in air
Still may the grateful pilgrim stop,
To bless the spot that holds thy dust.
* Major Edward Hodge, of the 7th Hussars, who fell at the head of his squadron in the attack of the Polish Lancers.
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