Spring finds not here a melancholy breast,
When she applies her annual test
To dead and living; when her breath
Quickens, as now, the withered heath;—
Nor flaunting Summer—when he throws
His soul into the briar-rose;
Or calls the lily from her sleep
Prolonged beneath the bordering deep;
Nor Autumn, when the viewless wren
Is warbling near the Brownie’s Den.
X.
Wild Relique! beauteous as the chosen spot
In Nysa’s isle, the embellished grot;
Whither, by care of Libyan Jove,
(High Servant of paternal Love)
Young Bacchus was conveyed—to lie
Safe from his step-dame Rhea’s eye;
Where bud, and bloom, and fruitage, glowed,
Close-crowding round the infant god;
All colours,—and the liveliest streak
A foil to his celestial cheek!
APPENDIX G.
‘The bonny Holms of Yarrow.’—Page 254.
In the Tour in Scotland, 1814, the Poet writes:—‘I seldom read or think of this Poem without regretting that my dear sister was not of the party, as she would have had so much delight in recalling the time when travelling together in Scotland we declined going in search of this celebrated stream.’
YARROW VISITED,
September 1814.
And is this—Yarrow?—This the Stream
Of which my fancy cherished,
So faithfully, a waking dream?
An image that hath perished!
O that some Minstrel’s harp were near,
To utter notes of gladness,
And chase this silence from the air,
That fills my heart with sadness!
Yet why?—a silvery current flows
With uncontrolled meanderings;
Nor have these eyes by greener hills
Been soothed, in all my wanderings.