Round many a rocky pyramid, Presumptuous piled on Shinar's plain. Wild crests as pagod ever decked Nor lacked they many a banner fair; For, from their shivered brows displayed, Far o'er the unfathomable glade, sheen, The brier-rose fell in streainers green; And creeping shrubs, of thousand dyes, Waved in the west-wind's summer sighs. Boon nature scattered, free and wild, Each plant or flower, the mountain's child, Here eglantine embalmed the air, Hawthorn and hazel mingled there; The primrose pale and violet flower, Found in each cliff a narrow bower; Fox-glove and night-shade, side by side, Emblems of punishment and pride, Grouped their dark hues with every stain The weather-beaten crags retain. With boughs that quaked at every breath, Gray birch and aspen wept beneath; Where seemed the cliffs to meet on high, His boughs athwart the narrowed sky. Highest of all, where white peaks glanced, Where glist'ning streamers waved and danced, The wanderer's eye could barely view The summer heaven's delicious blue; So wondrous wild, the whole might seem The scenery of a fairy dream. [From The Lay of the Last Minstrel.] IF thou would'st view fair Melrose aright, Go visit it by the pale moonlight; For the gay beams of lightsome day Gild, but to flout, the ruins gray. When the broken arches are black in night, And each shafted oriel glimmers white; When the cold light's uncertain shower Streams on the ruined central tower; When buttress and buttress, alternately, Seem framed of ebon and ivory; When distant Tweed is heard to rave, Whose wishes, soon as granted fly; It liveth not in fierce desire. With dead desire it doth not die; It is the secret sympathy, The silver link, the silken tie, Which heart to heart, and mind to mind, In body and in soul can bind. |