Ambiguous looks, that scorn and yet relent, Sleep, wayward god! hath sworn, while these remain, If, bound by vows to Friendship's gentle side, Sweet Peace, who long hath shunn'd my plaintive day Thy careless steps may scare her doves away, ODE ON THE POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS OF THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND: CONSIDERED AS THE SUBJECT OF POETRY. INSCRIBED TO MR. JOHN HOME. HOME, thou return'st from Thames, whose Naiads long Have seen thee lingering with a fond delay, 'Mid those soft friends, whose hearts, some future day, Shall melt, perhaps, to hear thy tragic song.* Go, not unmindful of that cordial youthf Whom, long-endear'd, thou leav'st by Lavant's side; Together let us wish him lasting truth, And joy untainted, with his destin'd bride. Go! nor regardless, while these numbers boast My short-liv'd bliss, forget my social name; But think, far off, how, on the southern coast, I met thy friendship with an equal flame ! Fresh to that soil thou turn'st, where every vale Shall prompt the Poet, and his song demand; *How truly did Collins predict Home's tragic powers! A gentleman of the name of Barrow, who introduced Home to Collins. To thee thy copious subjects ne'er shall fail; There, must thou wake perforce thy Doric quill; 'Tis Fancy's land to which thou sett'st thy feet; How, wing'd with fate, their elf-shot arrows fly, Or, stretch'd on earth, the heart-smit heifers lie, Such airy beings awe th' untutor'd swain: Nor thou, though learn'd, his homelier thoughts neglect; Let thy sweet muse the rural faith sustain; These are the themes of simple, sure effect, That add new conquests to her boundless reign, E'en yet preserv'd, how often may'st thou hear, Strange lays, whose power had charm'd a Spenser's ear. At every pause, before thy mind possest, Their matted hair with boughs fantastic crown'd: The choral dirge, that mourns some chieftain brave, When every shrieking maid her bosom beat, And strew'd with choicest herbs his scented grave! Or whether sitting in the shepherd's shiel,* Thou hear'st some sounding tale of war's alarms; When at the bugle's call, with fire and steel, The sturdy clans pour'd forth their brawny swarms, And hostile brothers met, to prove each other's arms. 'Tis thine to sing, how, framing hideous spells, In Sky's lone isle, the gifted wizard-seer, Lodg'd in the wintry cave with Fate's fell spear, Or in the depth of Uist's dark forest dwells: How they, whose sight such dreary dreams engross, With their own vision oft astonish'd droop, When o'er the wat'ry strath, or quaggy moss, They see the gliding ghosts unbodied troop. Or, if in sports, or on the festive green, Their destin'd glance some fated youth descry, Who now, perhaps, in lusty vigour seen, A summer hut, built in the high part of the mountains, to tend their flocks in the warm season, when the pasture is fine. And rosy health, shall soon lamented die. The fifth stanza, and the half of the sixth, in Dr. Carlyle's copy, printed in the first volume of the "Transactions" of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, being deficient, have been supplied by Mr. Mackenzie ; whose lines are here annexed, for the purpose of comparison, and to do justice to the elegant author of the Man of Feeling: "Or on some bellying rock that shades the deep, The seer's entranced eye can well survey, O'er the dire whirlpool, that, in ocean's waste, The falling breeze within its reach hath plac'd- Silent he broods o'er quicksand, bog, or fen, When witched darkness shuts the eye of day, |