And when her bright form shall appear, As she may not be fond to resign, I have found out a gift for my fair, I have found where the wood-pigeons breed; But let me that plunder forbear, She will say, 'twas a barbarous deed. I have heard her with sweetness unfold And she call'd it the Sister of Love. Can a bosom so gentle remain Unmov'd, when her Corydon sighs? Will a nymph that is fond of the plain, These plains and this valley despise ? Dear regions of silence and shade! Soft scenes of contentment and ease! But where does my Phyllida stray? The groves may perhaps be as fair, THE CHASE. A Ballad. ANDREW MERCER. WHERE Loch-Mary roars round its mountainous shores, And lends the young Yarrow its wave; In the moonlight combat afar on the hill, Were the pride of the fair Ann Morville. At the fall of even, when dusky the heaven, To breathe their soft vows beneath the green boughs, And sigh'd that three mornings were yet to awake; In the following morn, at the sound of the horn, gay was the revel along the green, When the quiver'd horsemen skirmishing join'd! But never a chief of so gallant a mien, Though many assembled on that day, was seen, As Gilbert, whose bow hung behind. Ah! many a hart from his hind shall depart, And the trophied tusks of the boar were but small, Lo, start the dun roes at the sound of their foes, And the fear of the hunter's wile, For with bugle and hounds the region resounds, O'er many a copse-cover'd mile! And a hundred coursers neigh'd in the wind, On the green hills of Henderland sounding afar; The lake of St Mary the revelry join'd, And thunder'd throughout to its mountains behind, The shout of the woodland war! Ere felt was the power of the noon-day hour, And twice six more were pierc'd at the core, When furious and foaming, with hungry teeth, A bellowing boar rush'd on through the dell, A tempest of arrows, swift-ridden by death, Discharg'd at the monster its ravenous wrathBut more than a monster fell! Sigh, ye sons of the bow, for the hunter laid low, And bewail the sad hour, ye dames of the bower, In the moonlight combat afar on the hill, Were the pride of the fair Ann Morville! And deep did ye grieve, and your bosoms heave, Ye Chieftains and Dames of the hall; But the hapless bride, when she heard he had died, She wept not she wept not at all! For the blasting news, like a bolt of the sky, In a moment had dried up and wither'd her brain; Not a tear-drop remain'd to moisten her eye, And the soul-moving spark of her reason did fly, And never return'd again! Despair gnaw'd his prey in her bosom by day, 'Mid the darkest abode of the tower, And she went to the grove, to meet with her love, And thence, as the mood of her madness inclin❜d, Soon her body she gave to her Gilbert's grave, Where they breath'd their soft vows, beneath the green boughs, While the cushat sat cooing above. And the villager yet, while he points out the place, LOVE ODE. DAVENPORT. YE waving woods! ye hills! Ye springs and warbling rills! Ye far-spread wilds, and sun-excluding bowers! Where, stung with anguish deep, I wander'd oft to weep, And waste, unseen, the slowly-passing hours! Once more from cities proud, I come again, my former paths to tread; Amid your beauties sigh, To all but pain and hopeless sorrow dead. Your melancholy reign Of moody thoughts and soul-depressing cares; A myrtle crown, and breathes Soft, rapt'rous sighs, fond vows, and tend rest prayers. She, she, divinest maid, Blooms in such charms array'd As roses wear upon their sunny beds! |