Afar upon the Solsgirth moor, Each heather sprig of withered brown Is fringed with thread of silver pure As slow the soft flakes waver down; And on Glenconner’s lonely path, And Gartshore’s still and open strath, It falleth, quiet as the birth Of morning o’er the quickening earth.— Oh, rain may come and rain may go, But what can match the falling snow!
And all around our Merkland home Is laid a sheet of virgin lawn; On fairer, softer, ne’er did roam The nimble Oread or Faun. There is a wonder in the air, A living beauty everywhere; As if the whole had ne’er been planned, But touched by Merlin’s famous wand, Suddenly woke beneath his hand To potent bliss in fairy show— A mighty ravishment of snow!
October.
O for a quill pluck’d from the soaring wing Of an archangel, dipped in holy dew, To catch thy latest looks, thou loveliest October, o’er the many-coloured woods! October! vastlier disconsolate Than Saturn guiding melancholy spheres, Through ante-mundane silence and ripe death. Ere the last stack is housed, and woods are bare, And the vermilion fruitage of the brier Is soaked in mist, or shrivelled up with frost; Ere warm Spring nests are coldly to be seen Tenantless, but for rain and the cold snow, While yet there is a loveliness abroad,— The frail and indescribable loveliness Of a fair form Life with reluctance leaves, Being there only powerful,—while the earth Wears sackcloth in her great prophetic grief:—
Then the reflective melancholy soul,— Aimlessly wandering with slow falling foot The heath’ry solitude, in hope to assuage The cunning humour of his malady,— Loses his painful bitterness, and feels His own specific sorrows one by one Taken up in the huge dolour of all things.
O the sweet melancholy of the time When gently, ere the heart appeals, the year Shines in the fatal beauty of decay! When the sun sinks enlarged on Carronben, Nakedly visible without a cloud, And faintly from the faint eternal blue (That dim, sweet harebell-colour) comes the star Which evening wears;—when Luggie flows in mist, And in the cottage windows one by one, With sudden twinkle household lamps are lit, What noiseless falling of the faded leaf!
Sweet on a blossoming summer’s afternoon, When Fancy plays the wizard in the brain, Idly to saunter thro’ a lusty wood! But sweeter far—by how much sweeter, God Alone hath knowledge—in a pensive mood, Outstretched on green moss-velvet floss’d with thyme, To watch the fall o’ the leaf before the moon Shines out in sweet completion circular. For when the sunset hath withdrawn its gold And glimmering, like the surcease Of rich, low melody, erst inaudible streams Find voices in their still unwearied flow; And winds that have been much above the moors And mountains, have a deadly feel of cold, Forespeaking clear blue dawns and frosty chill.
The Roman Dyke.
