Epistle to Mr R. S.

Melrose, Teviotdale, August 3.

DEAR S , while the southern breeze
Floats freshening, from the upland leas,
Whispering of Autumn's mellow spoils
And jovial sports and grateful toils,
Awakening in the softened breast
Regrets and wishes long supprest,
O, come with me once more to hail
The scented heath, the sheafy vale,
The hills and streams of Teviotdale.
'Tis but a parting pilgrimage
To save from Time's destroying rage,
And changeful Fortune's withering blast,
The hallowed pictures of the past.
And though my steps have lingered long
From scenes that prompt the poet's song,
Till almost in my heart has died
The flame that glowed with boyish pride,
For this I'll wake once more the strain,
Which else had ne'er been waked again.
And, there, we'll woo the visions wild
Which first on opening fancy smiled,
By breezy dawn, by quiet noon,
Beneath the bright broad harvest-moon,
Or 'midst the mystic shadows dim
Which round the car of Twilight swim ;
While dreams of glory spring to birth,
More lovely than the forms of earth.

Then come, dear comrade ! welcome still
In every change of good or ill,
Whom young affection's wishes claim,
And friendship ever finds the same—-
Awake with all thy flow of mind,
With fancy bright and feelings kind,
And tune with me the rambling lay
To cheer us on our mountain way.

Say, shall we wander where the swain,
Bent o'er his staff, surveys the plain,
With lyart cheeks and locks of grey,
Like patriarch of the olden day ? —
Around him ply the reaper band,
With lightsome heart and eager hand,
And mirth and music cheer the toil, —
While sheaves that stud the russet soil,
And sickles gleaming in the sun,
Tell jocund AUTUMN is begun.

How gay the scenes of harvest morn,
Where Ceres pours her plenteous horn —
The hind's hoarse cry from loading car,
The voice of laughter from afar,
The placid master's sober joy,
The frolic of the thoughtless boy —
Cold is the heart when charms like these
Have lost their genial power to please !
But yet, my friend, there is an hour
(Oft has thy bosom owned its power)
When the full heart, in pensive tone,
Sighs for a scene more wild and lone.
Oh then, more sweet on Scotland's shore
The beetling cliff, the breakers' roar,
Or moorland waste, where all is still,
Save wheeling plover's whistle shrill, —
More sweet the seat by ancient stone,
Or tree with lichens overgrown,
Than richest bower that autumn yields.
'Midst merry England's cultured fields. —
Then, let our pilgrim footsteps seek
Old Cheviot's pathless mossy peak ;
For there the Mountain Spirit still
Lingers around the lonely hill,
To guard his wizard grottos hoar,
Where Cimbrian sages dwelt of yore ;
Or, shrouded in his robes of mist,
Ascends the mountain's shaggy breast,
To seize his fearful seat — upon
The elf-enchanted Hanging Stone, —
And count the kindred streams that stray
Through the broad regions of his sway ! —
Fair sister streams that wend afar
By bloomy bank or barren scaur,
Now hidden by the clustering brake,
Now lost amid the mountain lake,
Now clasping, with, protecting sweep,
Some mouldering castle's moated steep
Till, issuing from the uplands brown,
Fair rolls each flood by tower and town ;
The hills recede, and on the sight
Swell the bold rivers broad and bright.

The eye — the fancy almost fails
To trace them through their thousand vales,
Winding these Border hills among,
(The boast of chivalry and song),
From B t's banks of softest green
To the rude verge of dark Lochskene. —
'Tis a heart-stirring sight to view,
Far to the westward stretching blue,
That frontier ridge, which erst defied
The invader's march, the oppressor's pride ; —
The bloody field, for many an age,
Of rival nations' wasteful rage ;
In later times a refuge given /
To exiles in the cause of Heaven.

Far inland, where the mountain crest
O'erlooks the waters of the west,
And, 'midst the moorland wilderness,
Dark moss-cleuchs from a drear recess,
Curtained with ceaseless mists which feed
The sources of the Clyde and Tweed, —
There, injured Scotland's patriot band
For faith and freedom made their stand,
When traitor kings, who basely sold
Their country's fame for Gallic gold,—
Too abject o'er the free to reign, —
Warned by a father's fate in vain, —
In bigot fury trampled down
The race who oft preserved their crown : —
There, worthy of his masters, came
The despots' champion, bloody Graham,
To stain for aye a warrior's sword,
And lead a fierce, though fawning horde,
The human bloodhounds of the earth,
To hunt the peasant from his hearth !
— Tyrants ! could not misfortune teach
That man has rights beyond your reach ?
Thought ye the torture and the stake
Could that intrepid spirit break,
Which even in woman's breast withstood
The terrors of the fire and flood ? —
Yes — though the sceptic's tongue deride
Those martyrs who for conscience died, —
Though modish history blight their fame,
And sneering courtiers hoot the name
Of men who dared alone be free
Amidst a nation's slavery, —
Yet long for them the poet's lyre
Shall wake its notes of heavenly fire ;
Their names shall nerve the patriot's hand,
Upraised to save a sinking land ;
And piety shall learn to burn
With holier transports o'er their urn !

But now, all sterner thoughts forgot,
Peace broods upon the peasant's cot ;
And if tradition still prolongs
The memory of his father's wrongs,
Tis but the grateful thought that borrows
A blessing from departed sorrows. —
How lovely seems the simple vale
Where lives our sires' heroic tale !
The mossy pass, the mountain flood —
Still hallowed by the patriot's blood, —
The rocky cavern, once his tent,
And now his deathless monument,
Rehearsing to the kindling thought
What Faith inspired and Valour wrought !
Oh, ne'er shall he whose ardent prime
Was fostered in the freeman's clime,
Though doomed to seek a distant strand,
Forget his glorious native land —
Forget — 'mid Brahma's blood-stained groves —
These sacred scenes of youthful loves !
Sequestered haunts — so still — so fair,
That holy Faith might worship there,
And Error weep away her stains,
And dark Remorse forget his pains
And homeless hearts by fortune tost,
Or early hopeless passion crost,
Regain the peace they long had lost !

Then let us roam that lovely land,
By classic Teviot's sylvan strand,
By Yair and Flora's pathless glens,
And haunted Yarrow's dreary dens,
Till, with far-circling steps we hail
Thy native B t's broomy vale,
And reach my boyhood's birchen bowers
'Mong C 's cottages and towers.

C ! like voice of years gone by,
I hear thy mountain-melody ! —
It comes with long-forgotten dreams,
Once cherished by thy winding streams,
And sings of schoolboy rambles free,
And heartfelt young hilarity !

I see the moss-grown turrets hoar
Dim-gleaming on thy woodland shore,
Where oft, apart from vulgar eye,
I loved at summer-tide to lie,
Abandoned to the witching sway
Of some old bard's heroic lay,
Or poring o'er the immortal story
Of Roman and of Grecian glory.

Yet aye One Minstrel charmed me more
Than all I learned of classic lore,
Or war and beauty, gaily blent
In pride of knightly tournament, —
Even HE, in rustic verse, who told
Of Scotland's champion — 'Wallace bold —
Of Scotland's ancient " luve and lee,"

And Southron's coward treachery ! —
And oft I conned that harper's page
With old hereditary rage,
Till I have wept, in bitter mood,
That now no more in English blood
My country's faulchion might atone
The warrior's fall and widow's moan ! —
Or, 'neath the oak's broad-bending shade,
With half-shut eye-lids musing laid,
Weaving in fancy's tissue strange
The shapeless visions of revenge,
I conjured back the past again —
The marshalled bands, the battle-plain ,
The Border slogan's pealing shout,
The shock, the tumult, and the rout,
Victorious Scotland's bugle-blast,
And charging knights that hurry past :
Till down the dim-withdrawing vale
I seemed to see their glancing mail,
And hear the fleet barb's furious tramp
Re-echoed from yon ancient camp.

But, chief, when summer twilight mild
Drew her dim curtain o'er the wild,
I loved beside that ruin grey
To watch the fading gleam of day.
And though, perchance, with secret dread
I heard the bat flit round my head,
While winds that waved the long lank grass
With sound unearthly seemed to pass ;
Yet with a pleasing horror fell
Upon my heart the thrilling spell ;
For all that met the eye or ear
Was still so pure and peaceful here,
I deemed no evil might intrude
Within its sacred solitude. —
Still vivid memory can recall
The figure of each shattered wall ;
The aged trees, all hoar with moss,
Low bending o'er the sullen fosse ;
The rushing of the mountain flood ;
The cushat's cooing in the wood ;
The rooks that o'er the turrets sail ;
The lonely curlew's distant wail ;
The glories of the glowing west.

And, tinged with that departing sun,
To fancy's eye arises dun
A hill, along whose dusky brow,
Yet unprofaned by rustic plough,
The shaggy gorse and brown heath wave
O'er many a nameless warrior's grave.
— Yon peak, of yore, which wide and far
Gleamed like the wakeful eye of war,
And oft with warning flame and smoke,
Ten thousand spears to battle woke,
Now down each subject glen descries
Blue wreaths from quiet hamlets rise,
To where, soft fading on the eye,
Tweed's cultured banks in beauty lie,
Wide waving with a flood of grain
From Eildon to the eastern main.
— Oft from yon height I loved to mark,
Soon as the morning roused the lark,
And woodlands raised their raptured hymn,
That land of glory spreading dim ;
While slowly up the awakening dale
The mists withdrew their fleecy veil,
And tower, and wood, and winding stream,
Were brightening in the golden beam.

— Yet where the westward shadows fell
My eye with fonder gaze would dwell,
Though wild the view, and brown and bare ;
Nor castled halls, nor hamlets fair,
Nor range of sheltering woods, were there —
Nor river's sweeping pride between,
To give expression to the scene.

There stood a simple home, — where swells
The meadow sward to moory fells, —
A rural dwelling thatched and warm,
Such as might suit the upland farm.

A honeysuckle clasped the sash,
Half-shaded by the giant ash ;
And there the wall-spread apple-tree
Gave its white blossoms to the bee,
Beside the hop-bower's twisted shade,
Where age reclined and childhood played
Below, the silvery willows shook
Their tresses o'er a rambling brook,
That gamboll'd 'mong its banks of broom,
Till lost in L 's haunted gloom.

— Methinks I hear its gurgling dash,
Beside yon sheltering clump of ash,
Which screens below the boiling pool
With pebbled bottom clear and cool,
Where often from the shelving brim
We launched on sedgy sheaf to swim.

From Teviot's lovelier dales remote
The traveller's glance would scarcely note
That narrow valley, or espy
Aught there to win his wandering eye ;
But youthful memory pictures still
Each bush and stone that specked the hill ;
The braes with tangled copsewood green
The mossy cliffs that rose between ;
The fern that fringed each fairy nook ;
The mottled mead ; the mazy brook,
That underneath its osier shade
Still to the wild its music made.

Among the flowers and tedded hay
I see an elfin band at play ;
Blithe swinging on the green-wood bough,
Or guiding mimic wain and plough ;
Intent a summer booth to build,
Or tilling each his tiny field ; —
Or, proudly ranged in martial rank,
They muster on the mossy bank,
With rushy helm and sword of sedge,
A bloodless Border war to wage.

Anon, with lapse of circling years,
In other guise that group appears,
As childhood's gamesome mood gives place
To manly thought and maiden grace.
Beneath yon rock with lichens hoar,
Of fabled fays the haunt of yore,
They sit beside the Verier spring —
I hear the low winds whispering
The mournful ballad's simple strain ;
Or breathing flute awakes again
The echoes of each sylvan grot,
With many a sweetly-melting note.

Or, from the chambers of the north,
Comes Winter with his tempests forth ?
Athwart the shivering glebe to fling
The flaky snow-drift from his wing,
Shrouding, with many a fleecy fold,
The bosky dell and battle wold —
While, banished from his half-ploughed field,
The hind essays the flail to wield,
And, o'er the hills, the perilous road
Alone by shepherd's foot is trode,
Who gathers on the furzy heath
His flocks dug from the smothering wreath —
Then it was more than joy to meet
With long-loved friends in that retreat —
And still that valley's rude recess
Could charm in winter's wildest dress —
Whether the mountain speat has drowned
With mingling floods the meadow ground,
And through their hundred sluices break
The headlong currents to the Lake, —
Or the choked torrent's deafened flow
Is hushed in crystal caves below,
And down the cliffs the trickling rills
Congeal in columned icicles.
But when day's hasty steps retire.
Still sweeter by the blazing fire
In that low parlour's narrow bound
To draw the social circle round ;
Where no unwelcome step intrudes
To check gay humour's changeful moods.
Round flows the merry jest, — the tale
Of maiden cloister in the dale,
Of weeping spirit of the glen,
Of monster-snake of Wormeden ;
Of ladies doomed by Rome's command
To sift the church-yard mound of sand,
By penance drear to wash away
Foul murder's dire anathema :
Or graver history's graceful page,
Or traveller's venturous toils engage ;
Or poet's lay the bosom warms
With virtue's praise and nature's charms,
And faithful loves and feats of arms.
— And 'midst that friendly circle now
I mark a youth with open brow,
And thoughtful blue eyes beaming mild.
And temples wreathed with clusters wild
Of light brown hair ! — The pensive grace
Upon his features, seems the trace
Of thought more tender and refined
Than dawns upon the vulgar mind ;
But oft across his blooming cheek
Flushes a quick and hectic streak,
Like that which in an Indian sky,
Though cloudless, tells of danger nigh —
Danger — to tear from life and fame
The latest of a gentle name !

How fearful to affection's view
That blush more bright than beauty's hue \
Where, sad as cypress wreath, the rose
Amid consumption's ruin glows,
And decks with gay and treacherous bloom
The untimely passage to the tomb ! —
Now scattered far the smiling flowers,
That grew around these rustic bowers —
Ungentle hearts and strangers rude
Have passed along its solitude :
The hearth is cold— the walls are bare
That heard my grandsire's evening prayer, —
Gone — even the trees he planted there !
Yet still, dear Friend, methinks 'twere sweet
To trace once more that loved retreat —
Still, there, where'er my footsteps roam,
" My heart, untravelled," finds a home!
For 'midst these Border mountains blue,
And vales receding from the view,
And lonely lakes, and misty fells,
Some nameless charm for ever dwells —
Some spirit that again can raise
The visions of departed days,
And thoughts unuttered — undefined—-
That gleamed across my infant mind.

O lovely was the blest controul
Which came like music o'er my soul,
While there, — a rude untutor'd boy,
With heart tuned high to Nature's joy, —
Subdued by Beauty's winning form,
Or kindling 'midst the mountain storm, —
Alive to feeling's gentle smart,
Which wakes but does not waste the heart,—
I dreamt not of the workings deep
Of wilder passions yet asleep. —
Long from these native haunts estranged,
My home but not my heart is changed —
Amidst the city's feverish stir
'Tis still a mountain wanderer !

And though (if bodings be not vain)
Far other roamings yet remain,
In climes, where, 'mid the unwonted vales,
No early friend the wanderer hails,
Nor well-known hills arise to bless
His walks of pensive loneliness ;
Yet still shall fancy haunt with you
These scenes beloved when life was new,
And oft with tender zeal return
By yon deserted tomb to mourn ;
For oh, whate'er that lot may be
In Fate's dark book reserved for me,
I feel that nought in later life,
Ambition's pride, or passion's strife,
Or favouring fortune's boundless grasp,
This bosom with a tie can clasp,
So strong — so sacred — as endears
These relics of our earliest years.