nature

NO better Dog e'er kept his Master's Door
Than honest Snarl, who spar'd nor Rich nor Poor;
But gave the Alarm, when any one drew nigh,
Nor let pretended Friends pass fearless by:
For which reprov'd, as better Fed than Taught,
He rightly thus expostulates the Fault.

To keep the House from Rascals was my Charge;
The Task was great, and the Commission large.
Nor did your Worship e'er declare your Mind,
That to the begging Crew it was confin'd;
Who shrink an Arm, or prop an able Knee,

I mind me in the days departed,
How often underneath the sun
With childish bounds I used to run
To a garden long deserted.

The beds and walks were vanished quite;
And wheresoe'er had struck the spade,
The greenest grasses Nature laid
To sanctify her right.

I called the place my wilderness,
For no one entered there but I;
The sheep looked in, the grass to espy,
And passed it ne'ertheless.

The trees were interwoven wild,
And spread their boughs enough about

In stilly grove beside the sea
He mingles colours, measures space;
A bronze and breezy man is he,
Yet peace is in his face.
Behold him stand and longly stare,
Till deft of hand and deep of eye
He captures on a canvas square
The joy of earth and sky.

Aloof from servitude and strife,
From carking care and greed apart,
Beneath the blue he lives his life
Of Nature and of Art.
He grieves his pictures must be sold,
Aye, even when his funds are low,

When Scotland's great Regent, our warrior most dear,
The debt of his nature did pay,
T' was Edward, the cruel, had reason to fear,
And cause to be struck with dismay.

At the window of Edward the raven did croak,
Though Scotland a widow became;
Each tie of true honor to Wallace he broke-
The raven croaked "Sorrow and shame!"

At Eldersie Castle no raven was heard,
But soothings of honor and truth;
His spirit inspired the soul of the bard
To comfort the Love of his youth!

I sit upon the rocks that frown

Above the rapid Nile;

And on the toil of man look down

With bitter and scornful smile.

My rocks are inaccessible,

And few return their terrors to tell.


My subjects are the birds, whose wings

Never soar'd into other air;

To whose shrill cries each echo rings—

For their nests are hidden there:

They dip their plumes in that mighty river,

Whose course is onward—onward, for ever.

Who dwelt in yonder lonely Cot,
Why is it thus forsaken?
It seems, by all the world forgot,
Above its path the high grass grows,
And through its thatch the northwind blows
--Its thatch, by tempests shaken.

And yet, it tops a verdant hill
By Summer gales surrounded:
Beneath its door a shallow rill
Runs brawling to the vale below,
And near it sweetest flowrets grow
By banks of willow bounded.

Then why is ev'ry casement dark?
Why looks the Cot so chearless?
Ah ! why does ruin seem to mark

Uncircumscribed, unmeasured, vast,
Eternal as the Sea;
What lacks the tidal sea thou hast--
Profound stability.

Beneath the sun that burns and brands
In hushed Noon's halting breath,
Calm as the Sphinx upon thy sands
Thou art--nay, calm as death.

The desert foxes hide in holes,
The jackal seeks his lair;
The sombre rocks, like reddening coals,
Glow lurid in the glare.

Only some vulture far away,
Bald-headed, harpy-eyed,
Flaps down on lazy wing to prey

Fit winding-sheet for thee
Was the upheaving eternal sea,
Fit dirge the tempest’s slave-alarming roll
For yokeless as the waves alway
Thy thoughts went sounding forth, as they
Were marshalling to the trumpet of the universal soul.
Yet tell me, spirit bright,
Did nature sorrow not for thee?
That day, veiled not the sun his light
When rolling over Italy?
Paled not the stricken moon, that night,
When gazing down upon the doomful sea?

A Poem upon the Death of His Late Highness the Lord Protector

That Providence which had so long the care
Of Cromwell's head, and numbered every hair,
Now in itself (the glass where all appears)
Had seen the period of his golden years:
And thenceforh only did attend to trace
What death might least so fair a life deface.

The people, which what most they fear esteem,
Death when more horrid, so more noble deem,
And blame the last act, like spectators vain,
Unless the prince whom they applaud be slain.

Day of judgement, day of wonders!
Hark! the trumpet's awful sound,
Louder than a thousand thunders,
Shakes the vast creation round!
How the summons will the sinner's heart confound.

See the Judge, our nature wearing,
Cloth'd in majesty divine!
You who long for his appearing
Then shall say, "This God is mine!"
Gracious Saviour, own me in that day for thine!

At his call, the dead awaken,
Rise to life from earth and sea:
All the pow'rs of nature shaken
By his looks prepare to flee: