Cast on sunny bank its skin;Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see
Hatching in the hawthorn-tree, When the hen-bird’s wing doth rest
Quiet on her mossy nest;
Then the hurry and alarm
When the beehive casts its swarm;
Acorns ripe down-pattering,
While the autumn breezes sing.
Oh, sweet Fancy! let her loose;
Every thing is spoilt by use:
Where’s the cheek that doth not fade,
Too much gaz’d at? Where’s the maid Whose lip mature is ever new?
Where’s the eye, however blue,
Doth not weary? Where’s the face
One would meet in every place?
Where’s the voice, however soft,
One would hear so very oft?
At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth.
Let, then, winged Fancy find
Thee a mistress to thy mind: Dulcet-eyed as Ceres’ daughter,
Ere the God of Torment taught her
How to frown and how to chide;
With a waist and with a side
White as Hebe’s, when her zone
Slipt its golden clasp, and down
Fell her kirtle to her feet,
While she held the goblet sweet,
And Jove grew languid. — Break the mesh
Of the Fancy’s silken leash; Quickly break her prison-string
And such joys as these she’ll bring. —
Let the winged Fancy roam
Pleasure never is at home.
A Galloway Song
From a Letter to Tom Keats
Ah! ken ye what I met the day
Out oure the mountains
A coming down by craggies grey
An mossie fountains -
Ah goud hair’d Marie yeve I pray
Ane minute’s guessing -
For that I met upon the way
Is past expressing.
As I stood where a rocky brig
A torrent crosses I spied upon a misty rig
A troup o’ horses -
And as they trotted down the glen
I sped to meet them
To see if I might know the men
To stop and greet them.
First Willie on his sleek mare came
At canting gallop
His long hair rustled like a flame
On board a shallop. Then came his brother Rab and then
Young Peggy’s mither
And Peggy too - adown the glen
They went together -
I saw her wrappit in her hood
Fra wind and raining -
Her cheek was flush wi’ timid blood
Twixt growth and waning -
She turn’d her dazed head full oft
For there her brithers Came riding with her bridegroom soft
And mony ithers.
Young Tam came up an’ eyed me quick
With reddened cheek -
Braw Tam was daffed’’ like a chick -
He coud na speak -
Ah Marie they are all gane hame
Through blustering weather
An’ every heart is full on flame
A’ light as feather. Ah! Marie they are all gone hame
Fra happy wedding,
Whilst I - Ah is it not a shame?
Sad tears am shedding.
Hymn to Apollo
God of the golden bow,
And of the golden lyre,
And of the golden hair,
And of the golden fire,
Charioteer
Of the patient year,
Where - where slept thine ire,
When like a blank idiot I put on thy wreath,
Thy laurel, thy glory,
The light of thy story, Or was I a worm - too low crawling, for death?
O Delphic Apollo!
The Thunderer grasp’d and grasp’d,
The Thunderer frown’d and frown’d;
The eagle’s feathery mane
For wrath became stiffen’d - the sound
Of breeding thunder
Went drowsily under,
Muttering to be unbound.
O why didst thou pity, and for a worm Why touch thy soft lute
