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The poetical remains of the late Dr. John Leyden, (1819)
The poetical remains of the late Dr John Leyden - 1819 Author:John Leyden Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ODE, ADDRESSED TO MR. GEO. DYER, ON SCOTTISH SCENERY AND MANNERS. WRITTEN IN 1799. Dyer ! whom late on Lothian's daisied plains, We hail'd a pilgrim-... more »bard, like minstrel old, (Such as our younger eyes no more behold, Though still remembered by the aged swains,) Sleeps thy shrill lyre where Cam's slow waters lave Her sedgy banks o'erhung with oziers blue ? Or does romantic Tweed's pellucid wave Still rise in fancy to the poet's view ? — Her moors, that oft have seen the hostile throng Of warriors mingle in encounter dire; — Her meads, that oft have heard the shepherd's song Carol of youthful love's enchanting fire; — Lomond's proud mountains, where the summer snow, In faint blue wreaths, " congeals the lap of May;" — And Teviot's banks, where flowers of fairy blow, — Could'st thou with cold unraptur'd eye survey, Nor wake to bardish notes the bosom-thrilling lay ? What though by Selma's blazing oak no more The bards of Fingal wake the trembling string; Still to the sea-breeze sad they nightly sing The dirge forlorn on ancient Morven's shore; And still, in every hazel-tangled dell, The hoary swain's traditionary lay Can point the place where Morven's heroes fell, And where their mossy tombs arc crusted gray. The mountain rock, to shepherds only known, Retains the stamp of Fingal's giant heel; The rough round crag, by rocking storms o'erthrown, The swain misdeems some ancient chariot wheel. On those brown steeps where the shy red deer play, And wanton roes, unscar'd by hunter, roam, Sat Morven's maids o'er the smooth dimpling bay, To see their barks, from Lochlin oaring home, Rush like the plunging whale through ocean's bursting foam. The heath, where once the venom-bristled boar Pierc'd by the spear of m...« less