Held ruling power: I marked thy embryo tuneful flame, "With future hope, I oft would gaze, Fired at the simple, artless lays "I saw thee seek the sounding shore, I saw grim Nature's visage hoar "Or when the deep green-mantled earth I saw thee eye the general mirth "When ripened fields, and azure skies, To vent thy bosom's swelling rise "When youthful love, warm-blushing, strong I taught thee how to pour in song, "I saw thy pulse's maddening play, But yet the light that led astray "I taught thy manners painting strains, And some, the pride of Coila's plains, "Thou canst not learn, nor can I shew, To paint with Thomson's landscape glow; Or wake the bosom-melting throe, With Shenstone's art; Or pour, with Gray, the moving flow "Yet, all beneath the unrivalled rose. The lowly daisy sweetly blows Though large the forest's monarch throws Yet green the juicy hawthorn grows "Then never murmur nor repine; Can give a bliss o'ermatching thine, "To give my counsels all in one Thy tuneful flame still careful fan; Preserve the dignity of man, With soul erect; And trust, the universal plan "And wear thou this," she solemn said, And, like a passing thought, she fled 1 Certain stanzas omitted by Burns from the printed copy of The Vision, will be found in an Appendix at the end of this volume. A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, October 1852, expresses his opinion that Burns was indebted for the idea of The Vision to a copy of verses written by the "melan A WINTER NIGHT. "Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are, The Vision leaves the poet reassured and comforted in the all-sufficing grace of the Muse; but no such feel choly and pensive Wollaston," so far back as 1681. “Wollaston's poem was written on the occasion of his leaving, 'with a heavy heart,' as he says, his beloved Cambridge." He describes himself as sitting in his own "small apart ment." "As here one day I sate, Disposed to ruminate, Deep melancholy did benumb, With thoughts of what was past and what to come. "I thought I saw my Muse appear, Whose dress declared her haste, whose looks her fear; A wreath of laurel in her hand she bore, Such laurel as the god Apollo wore. The piercing wind had backward combed her hair, Her gown, which, with celestial color dyed, Through speed a little flowed aside, When, stopping suddenly, she spoke to me: ing, however thoroughly once established, could long hold sway over one so sensitive as he to all the harassing problems of his lowly destiny, and to all that met his eye in humble life. At every recoil from the glowing excitement of the social hour, the love-meeting, or the triumphant essay in verse, the deep contemplative melancholy which has been remembered by so many as the reigning expression of his face, again beset him. We have a description of these darker moods of his mind in a poem, otherwise sufficiently remarkable as containing an early specimen of his composition in pure English. In the Winter Night we see a reflection of Gray and Collins, as in the Epistles we see a reflection of Ramsay. WHEN biting Boreas, fell and doure, keen-stern Sharp shivers through the leafless bower; Not my ill-usage, surely, made thee fly "She paused awhile, with joy and weariness oppressed, And quick reciprocations of her breast: She spoke again: What travel and what care Have I bestowed! my vehicle of air How often changed in quest of thee!'" She concludes, like the Muse of Burns, by counselling him to remain true to her and poetry: "Suppose the worst, thy passage rough, still I'll be kind. And breathe upon thy sails behind; Besides, there is a port before: And every moment thou advancest to the shore, Where virtuous souls shall better usage find.' Concern and agitation of my head Waked me; and with the light the phantom fled." |