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SCENES OF YOUTH.

SWEET Scenes of youth, to faithful memory dear,
Still fondly cherished with the sacred tear,
When, in the softened light of summer skies,
Full on my soul life's first illusions rise!

Sweet scenes of youthful bliss, unknown to pain!
I come to trace your soothing haunts again—
To mark each grace that pleased my stripling prime!
By absence hallowed, and endeared by time;

To lose amid your winding dells the past—
Ah! must I think this lingering look the last!
Ye lovely vales, that met my earliest view!
How soft ye smiled when nature's charms were new!
Green was her vesture, glowing, fresh, and warm,
And every opening grace had power to charm;
While, as each scene in living lustre rose,
Each young emotion waked from soft repose.

Even as I muse, my former life returns,
And youth's first ardour in my bosom burns.
Like music melting in a lover's dream,

I hear the murmuring song of Teviot's stream.
The crisping rays that on the waters lie,
Depict a paler moon, a fainter sky;

While, through the inverted alder-boughs below,
The twinkling stars with greener lustre glow.

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As every prospect opens on my view,

I seem to live departed years anew;

When, in these wilds, a jocund, sportive child,

Each flower, self-sown, my heedless hours beguiled;

The wabret-leaf, that by the pathway grew,
The wild-brier rose of pale and blushful hue,
The thistle's rolling wheel of silken down,
The blue-bell, or the daisy's pearly crown,
The gaudy butterfly, in wanton round,

That like a living pea-flower skimmed the ground.

Again I view the cairn, and moss-gray stone, Where oft at eve I wont to muse alone, And vex with curious toil mine infant eye, To count the gems that stud the nightly sky; Or think, as playful fancy wandered far, How sweet it were to dance from star to star! Again I view each rude romantic glade, Where once with tiny steps my footsteps strayed, To watch the foam-bells of the bubbling brook, Or mark the motions of the clamorous rook, Who saw her nest, close thatched with ceaseless toil, At summer eve become the woodman's spoil.

Sweet scenes! conjoined with all that most endears The cloudless morning of my tender years; With fond regret your haunts I wander o'er, And, wandering, feel myself the child no more: Your forms, your sunny tints, are still the same; But sad the tear which lost affections claim.

LEYDEN.

TO IANTHE.

AGAIN, Sweet siren, breathe again
That deep, pathetic, powerful strain,

Whose melting tones of tender woe Fall soft as evening's summer dew,

That bathes the pinks and harebells blue Which in the vales of Teviot blow.

Such was the song that soothed to rest,
Far in the Green Isle of the West,

The Celtic warrior's parted shade;
Such are the lonely sounds that sweep
O'er the blue bosom of the deep,

When shipwrecked mariners are laid.

Ah! sure as Hindu legends tell,
When music's tones the bosom swell,
The scenes of former life return;
Ere, sunk beneath the morning star,
We left our parent climes afar,
Immured in mortal forms to mourn.

Or if, as ancient sages ween,
Departed spirits, half unseen,

Can mingle with the mortal throng,
'Tis when from heart to heart we roll
The deep-toned music of the soul,
That warbles in our Scottish song.

I hear, I hear, with awful dread,
The plaintive music of the dead!

They leave the amber fields of day:
Soft as the cadence of the wave,

That murmurs round the mermaid's grave, They mingle in the magic lay.

Sweet sounds! that oft have soothed to rest
The sorrows of my guileless breast,

And charmed away mine infant tears:
Fond memory shall your strains repeat,
Like distant echoes, doubly sweet,

That in the wild the traveller hears.

And thus the exiled Scotian maid,
By fond alluring love betrayed

To visit Syria's date-crowned shore,
In plaintive strains that soothed despair,
Did "Bothwell's banks that bloom so fair,"
And scenes of early youth, deplore.

Soft siren! whose enchanting strain
Floats wildly round my raptured brain,
I bid your pleasing haunts adieu!
Yet, fabling fancy oft shall lead

My footsteps to the silver Tweed,

Through scenes that I no more must view.

LEYDEN.

HOPE TRIUMPHANT IN DEATH.

UNFADING Hope! when life's last embers burn—
When soul to soul, and dust to dust return,
Heaven to thy charge resigns the awful hour!
O! then thy kingdom comes, Immortal Power!
What though each spark of earth-born rapture fly,
The quivering lip, pale cheek, and closing eye,
Bright to the soul thy seraph hands convey
The morning dream of life's eternal day-

Then, then, the triumph and the trance begin,
And all the Phoenix spirit burns within!

O, deep enchanting prelude to repose,
The dawn of bliss, the twilight of our woes!
Yet half I hear the parting spirit sigh,

It is a dread and awful thing to die!

Mysterious worlds, untravelled by the sun!
Where time's far-wandering tide has never run,
From your unfathomed shades, and viewless spheres,
A warning comes, unheard by other ears.

'Tis Heaven's commanding trumpet, long and loud,
Like Sinai's thunder, pealing from the cloud!
While Nature hears, with terror-mingled trust,
The shock that hurls her fabric to the dust;
With mortal terrors clouds immortal bliss,
And shrieks and hovers o'er the dark abyss !

Daughter of Faith, awake, arise, illume
The dread unknown, the chaos of the tomb!
Melt and dispel, ye spectre-doubts, that roll
Cimmerian darkness on the parting soul!
Fly, like the moon-eyed herald of Dismay,
Chased on his night-steed by the star of day!
The strife is o'er-the pangs of Nature close,
And life's last rapture triumphs o'er her woes.
Hark! as the spirit eyes, with eagle gaze,
The noon of Heaven, undazzled by the blaze,
On heavenly winds, that waft her to the sky,
Float the sweet tones of star-born melody;
Wild as that hallowed anthem, sent to hail
Bethlehem's shepherds in the lonely vale,

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