Yet touched by Winter's horizontal beam,
Frequent, the oak embrowned, and ruddier beech,
Spread their faint glows, reflected, on the stream,
Their solemn maxim, lingering but to teach:

To whisper youth,-how beautiful the brow
Whose faded looks heaven's peaceful smiles illume;
To counsel age,-that but a passing "Now,"
It boasts its grace, and drops into the tomb.

Not such thy fate, Romille! an early blast
Destroyed thy vernal hopes; thy Sunimer's pride:
Soon, hapless youth, thy days of promise passed;
Swift, as along these bickering waters glide.

Where sable rocks frown o'er the straitened flood,
That, 'twixt their ledges, forced of yore its way,
Wrapt as I muse, recoils my freezing blood;

Here, here thou sunk'st; the insatiate torrent's prey.

Fearless of danger, ardent in the chase,

I mark thee nimbly speeding down the hill; Mark the keen eye; the flush that lights thy face; Mark the gay, gallant, elegant Romille.

And now, thy greyhound leashing to thy side,

I hear thee breathe;-thou pausest where I stand: Collect'st thy force to span the impetuous tide ;' The tide by thee which never shall be spanned. I see the huntsman's cap, the huntsman's spear; The gaitres to the midleg dashed with dew: The doubtful whimpering of thy hound I hear; Afraid to leap,-yet anxious to pursue.

And lo! thou dar'st the bold, the dreadful bound;
And back art dragg'd, and plungest in the wave:
While vainly struggling, the reluctant hound
Sinks,-fatal clog-to share that watery grave.

Say! powers unseen, that love to linger near;
Oft rose the youth ere death had sealed his eyes?
Oft called for aid, though none were nigh to hear;
While echo mocked him with responsive cries.

Awful transition!-Now-brisk, joyous, bold:
Now-reft of life's warm pulse; its feeblest breath!
See! son of man!-thy pictured state behold!

A step; and but a step, 'twixt thee and death*.

How grieved the parents, when the pale cold corse
Was borne with dripping locks, with ghastly mien ;
The mother's anguish like the flood-stream's force,
The sterner sire's,-the spring that mines unseen!
But these have passed away: that sire is gone:
Closed is that mother's span ;-and told her tale:
Yet through the chasm thy waters, Wharf, roll on:
And yet shall roll-when this right hand shall fail.
Snatch'd from the wrecks of time, should this rude verse
Gain but a local and a lowly fame;

If some lone wanderer should its tale rehearse,
'Mid the wild landscape, still and still the same:

Thou, who shalt stand on this dark flood to gaze,
Let truth, let virtue moralize the theme!
O think, that in a few brief years, months, days,
Thou too shalt pass the irremeable stream.

* Vid. 1 Sam. xx. 3.

THE MINSTREL:

A POEM,

IN FIVE BOOKS.

THE FIRST TWO BOOKS BY DR. BEATTIE; THE THREE LAST

BY THE REV. R. POLWHELE.

ANALYSIS OF THE POEM.

I.-First and Second Books.

THE progress of GENIUS in boyism and in youth; as, through the medium of the senses, the fancy is influenced by universal nature, as the memory is stored with knowledge, and as the judgment is improved by education-Its wilder energies.

II.-Third Book.

GENIUS, as the fancy and the passions of youth are influenced by external objects, particularly by female beauty-assuming a more decided form in music, painting, and poetry.

III.-Fourth and Fifth Books.

The sister arts thus called into action;-their operation in the enterprising spirit of the lover and the warriour; and their effect (both in public and private life) viz; to the Minstrel, the acquisition of riches, power, and beauty; and to his country, through his instrumentality, emancipation from tyranny, and restoration to liberty and peace.

NOTE.

The second stanza in Beattie's first book should be re-written. To accommodate the sentiment to the conduct of Edwin when

brought into action, we should say, "But the fire of genius will often break through all the obstructions of fortune, where there is scope to expatiate through universal nature."

THE MINSTREL.

BOOK THE THIRD.

Genius [as the fancy and the passions are influenced by external objects, particularly by female beauty,] assuming a more decided form in music, painting, and poetry.

Yes, it is meet to pour afresh the tear*,

Which mourns, in pale regret, the parted friend! Him, who to all the choral sisters dear

Would to my earliest notes assistance lend, And breathing inspiration, kindly bend O'er each weak effort, as I tun'd the rhyme! E'en now, I own that influence, and ascend To heights where Edwin's genius towers sublime: He nurs'd the boy's first bloom, the stripling's vigorous prime.

* It may not, perhaps, be improper for the editor to insert here the closing stanza of Dr. Beattie's second book, in order that the connection of the second and third books may be immediately perceived.

Art thou, my Gregory, for ever fled!

And am I left to unavailing woe!

When fortune's storms assail this weary head,

Where cares long since have shed untimely snow,
Ah, now for comfort whither shall I go!

No more thy soothing voice my anguish cheers:
Thy placid eyes with smiles no longer glow,

My hopes to cherish, and allay my fears!

'Tis meet that I should mourn: flow forth afresh my tears.
VOL. VIII.

E

The eye

11.

that kindled, as the sod is cold!

The sod shall wake in blossoms! but no more Unclos'd, shall that illumin'd eye behold

My Minstrel on the sky-ting'd mountain hoar,
The mossy cairne, the cliff, the surging shore,
As candour would assign the poet's meed;

Or now, (where lorn amidst the Yarrow's roar,
One impulse, one alone, doth Edwin heed)
Shall cordial love look up, and listen to my reed!

Yet can I fancy, so benign and arch,

That smile, my friend, effus'd upon thy face, Where Edwin, midst his desultory march,

Would pause, then run, and slackening then his pace, From sorrow snatch the muse's pensive grace;

And from his moody melancholy start,

And clasp some lovely form with fond embrace,

As if for ever from that form to part,

And rue the vision vain, and sigh forth all the heart.

IV.

Sad exile from his hills, no more the crook,
The nightly pen, the pipe, the tinkling bell,
Shall Edwin hail; nor hurry from the brook
(That his pinebridge o'erthrew with instant swell)
His reckless flock; nor whistling o'er the fell,"
Bid honest Tray a bleating lamb chase back;
Nor, tho' his progress drifted snows repel,
And, at each step the frozen current crack,
Pursue the vagrant kid, and trace its fading track.