To this extract I will add a few more stanzas towards the end of the first book: "Oft when the winter storm had ceas'd to rave, He roam'd the snowy waste at even, to view More wildly great than ever pencil drew. Rocks, torrents, gulfs, and shapes of giant size, Thence musing onward to the sounding shore, List'ning, with pleasing dread, to the deep roar When sulphurous clouds roll'd on th' autumnal day, Along the trembling wilderness to stray, What time the lightning's fierce career began, And o'er heaven's rending arch the rattling thunder ran. Responsive to the sprightly pipe, when all In sprightly dance the village youth were join'd, Edwin, of melody aye held in thrall, From the rude gambol far remote reclin❜d, Sooth'd with the soft notes warbling in the wind. Ah then, all jollity seem'd noise and folly, To the pure soul by Fancy's fire refin'd, Ah what is mirth but turbulence unholy, When with the charms compar'd of heavenly melancholy ! Is there a heart that music cannot melt? Alas! how is that rugged heart forlorn! Is there, who ne'er those mystic transports felt Of solitude and melancholy born? He needs not woo the Muse; he is her scorn. The sophist's rope of cobwebs he shall twine; Mope o'er the schoolman's peevish page; or mourn, Sneak with the scoundrel fox, or grunt with glutton swine. For Edwin, Fate a nobler doom had plann'd; For this of time and culture is the fruit; And Edwin gain'd at last this fruit so rare; As in some future verse I purpose to declare," It will be seen from the last stanza that Beat tie intended to continue his poem, and he did in fact write a second canto sometime afterwards, Edwin hav but it is very inferior to the first. ing attained manhood, takes walks "of wider circuit" than before. "One evening, as he fram'd the careless rhyme, It was his chance to wander far abroad," And o'er a lonely eminence to climb, Which heretofore his foot had never trod; A vale appear'd below, a deep retired abode. Thither he hied, enamour'd of the scene, Where, thro' the cliffs, the eye, remote, survey'd, Blue hills, and glitt'ring waves, and skies in gold array'd. Along this narrow valley you might see The wild deer sporting on the meadow ground, Or mossy stone, or rock with woodbine crown'd. Oft did the cliffs reverberate the sound Or on resounding wings to shoot athwart the sky. One cultivated spot there was, that spread Its flow'ry bosom to the noon-day beam, He minded not the sun's last trembling gleam, It is the voice of an aged hermit, who after having known the illusions of the world, has buried himself in this retreat, for the purpose of indulging in meditation, and singing the praises of his Creator. This venerable old man instructs the young troubadour, and reveals to him the secret of his own genius. It is evident that this was a most happy idea, but the execution has not answered the first design of the author. The hermit speaks too long, and makes very trite observations with regard to the grandeur and misery of human life. Some passages are, however, to be found in this second book which recal the charm created by the first. strophes of it are consecrated to the a friend, whom the poet had lost. The last memory of It appears that Beattie was often destined to feel the weight of sorrows. The death of his only son affected him deeply and withdrew him entirely from the service of the Muses. He still lived on the rocks of Morven, but these rocks no longer inspired his song. Like Ossian, after the death of Oscar, he suspended his harp on the branches of an oak. It is said that his son evinced great poetical talents; perhaps he was the young minstrel, whom a father had feelingly described, and whose steps he too soon ceased to trace upon the summit of the mountain. |