When summer in gaudy profusion is dress'd,
And the dew-drop hangs clear on the violet's breast,
I list with delight to his rapturous strain,
While the borrowing echo returns it again;
Then say not the Bard has turn'd old.
But not summer's profusion alone can inspire
His soul in the song, or his hand on the lyre,
But rapid his numbers and wilder they flow,
When the wintry winds rave o'er his mountains of snow;
Then say not the Bard has turn'd old.
I have seen him elate when the black clouds were riven,
Terrific and wild, by the thunder of heaven,
And smile at the billows that angrily rave,
Incessant and deep o'er the mariner's grave;
Then say not the Bard has turn'd old.
When the eye that expresses the warmth of his heart,
Shall fail the benevolent wish to impart—
When his blood shall be cold as the wintry wave,
And silent his harp as the gloom of the grave,
Then say that the Bard has turn'd old.
HAMILTON PAUL.
A man of fine intellect, a poet, and an elegant writer, Hamilton Paul has claims to remembrance. On the 10th April 1773, he was born in a small cottage on the banks of Girvan Water, in the parish of Dailly, and county of Ayr. In the same dwelling, Hugh Ainslie, another Scottish bard, was afterwards born. Receiving his elementary education at the parish school, he became a student in the University of Glasgow. Thomas Campbell, author of "The Pleasures of Hope," was a college contemporary; and their mutual love of poetry drew them closely to each other; they competed for academical rewards offered for the best compositions in verse, till frequent adjudication as to the equality of their merits, induced them to forbear contesting on the same subjects. At least on one occasion the verses of Paul were preferred to those of the Bard of Hope. The following lines, exhibiting a specimen of his poetical powers at this period, are from a translation of Claudian's "Epithalamium on the Marriage of Honorius and Maria," for which, in the Latin class, he gained a prize along with his friend:—
"Maria, now the maid of heavenly charms,
Decreed to bliss the youthful monarch's arms;
Inflames Augustus with unwonted fires,
And in his breast awakens new desires.
In love a novice, while his bosom glows
With restless heat, the cause he scarcely knows;
The rural pastimes suited to his age,
His late delight, no more his care engage;
No more he wills to give his steed the reins
In eager chase, and urge him o'er the plains;
No more he joys to bend the twanging bow,
To hurl the javeline, or the dart to throw;
His alter'd thoughts to other objects rove,
To wounds inflicted by the god of love.
How oft, expressive of the inward smart,
Did groans convulsive issue from his heart!
How oft did blushes own the sacred flame,
How oft his hand unbidden wrote her name!
Now presents worthy of the plighted fair,
And nuptial robes his busy train prepare—
Robes wherewith Livia was herself attired,
And those bright dames that to the beds aspired
Of emperors. Yet the celestial maid
Requires no earthly ornamental aid
To give her faultless form a single grace,
Or add one charm to her bewitching face."
The circumstances of the young poets were far from affluent. Campbell particularly felt the pressure of poverty. He came hastily one morning to the lodgings of his friend to request his opinion of some verses; they were immediately printed, and the copies sold to his fellow-students for a halfpenny each. So Paul sometimes told his friends, quoting the following lines as all he could remember of the production:—
"Loud shriek'd afar the angry sprite,
That rode upon the storm of night,
And loud the waves were heard to roar
That lash'd on Jura's rocky shore."