POEMS
COMPOSED OR SUGGESTED DURING A TOUR IN THE SUMMER OF 1833
XXVII. WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF MACPHERSON’S OSSIAN
POEMS
COMPOSED OR SUGGESTED DURING A TOUR IN THE SUMMER OF 1833
OFT have I caught, upon a fitful breeze, Fragments of far-off melodies, With ear not coveting the whole, A part so charmed the pensive soul. While a dark storm before my sight Was yielding, on a mountain height Loose vapours have I watched, that won Prismatic colours from the sun; Nor felt a wish that heaven would show The image of its perfect bow. 10 What need, then, of these finished Strains? Away with counterfeit Remains! An abbey in its lone recess, A temple of the wilderness, Wrecks though they be, announce with feeling The majesty of honest dealing. Spirit of Ossian! if imbound In language thou may’st yet be found, If aught (intrusted to the pen Or floating on the tongues of men, 20 Albeit shattered and impaired) Subsist thy dignity to guard, In concert with memorial claim Of old grey stone, and high-born name That cleaves to rock or pillared cave Where moans the blast, or beats the wave, Let Truth, stern arbitress of all, Interpret that Original, And for presumptuous wrongs atone;– Authentic words be given, or none! 30 Time is not blind;–yet He, who spares Pyramid pointing to the stars, Hath preyed with ruthless appetite On all that marked the primal flight Of the poetic ecstasy Into the land of mystery. No tongue is able to rehearse One measure, Orpheus! of thy verse; Musaeus, stationed with his lyre Supreme among the Elysian quire, 40 Is, for the dwellers upon earth, Mute as a lark ere morning’s birth. Why grieve for these, though past away The music, and extinct the lay? When thousands, by severer doom, Full early to the silent tomb Have sunk, at Nature’s call; or strayed From hope and promise, self-betrayed; The garland withering on their brows; Stung with remorse for broken vows; 50 Frantic–else how might they rejoice? And friendless, by their own sad choice! Hail, Bards of mightier grasp! on you I chiefly call, the chosen Few, Who cast not off the acknowledged guide, Who faltered not, nor turned aside; Whose lofty genius could survive Privation, under sorrow thrive; In whom the fiery Muse revered The symbol of a snow-white beard, 60 Bedewed with meditative tears Dropped from the lenient cloud of years. Brothers in soul! though distant times Produced you nursed in various climes, Ye, when the orb of life had waned, A plenitude of love retained: Hence, while in you each sad regret By corresponding hope was met, Ye lingered among human kind, Sweet voices for the passing wind, 70 Departing sunbeams, loth to stop, Though smiling on the last hill top! Such to the tender-hearted maid Even ere her joys begin to fade; Such, haply, to the rugged chief By fortune crushed, or tamed by grief; Appears, on Morven’s lonely shore, Dim-gleaming through imperfect lore, The Son of Fingal; such was blind Maeonides of ampler mind; 80 Such Milton, to the fountain head Of glory by Urania led!