The Modern Scottish Minstrel Volume I Part 44

[105] These are his descriptions of "The Drunkard," "The Glutton," and "The Good and Wicked Pastor."

A CLAGIONN.

THE SKULL.

As I sat by the grave, at the brink of its cave Lo! a featureless skull on the ground; The symbol I clasp, and detain in my grasp, While I turn it around and around.

Without beauty or grace, or a glance to express Of the bystander nigh, a thought; Its jaw and its mouth are tenantless both, Nor pa.s.ses emotion its throat.

No glow on its face, no ringlets to grace Its brow, and no ear for my song; Hush'd the caves of its breath, and the finger of death The raised features hath flatten'd along.

The eyes' wonted beam, and the eyelids' quick gleam-- The intelligent sight, are no more; But the worms of the soil, as they wriggle and coil, Come hither their dwellings to bore.

No lineament here is left to declare If monarch or chief art thou; Alexander the Brave, as the portionless slave That on dunghill expires, is as low.

Thou delver of death, in my ear let thy breath Who tenants my hand, unfold; That my voice may not die without a reply, Though the ear it addresses is cold.

Say, wert thou a May,[106] of beauty a ray, And flatter'd thine eye with a smile?

Thy meshes didst set, like the links of a net, The hearts of the youth to wile?

Alas every charm that a bosom could warm Is changed to the grain of disgust!

Oh, fie on the spoiler for daring to soil her Gracefulness all in the dust!

Say, wise in the law, did the people with awe Acknowledge thy rule o'er them-- A magistrate true, to all dealing their due, And just to redress or condemn?

Or was righteousness sold for handfuls of gold In the scales of thy partial decree; While the poor were unheard when their suit they preferr'd, And appeal'd their distresses to thee?

Say, once in thine hour, was thy medicine of power To extinguish the fever of ail?

And seem'd, as the pride of thy leech-craft e'en tried O'er omnipotent death to prevail?

Alas, that thine aid should have ever betray'd Thy hope when the need was thine own; What salve or annealing sufficed for thy healing When the hours of thy portion were flown?

Or--wert thou a hero, a leader to glory, While armies thy truncheon obey'd; To victory cheering, as thy foemen careering In flight, left their mountains of dead?

Was thy valiancy laid, or unhilted thy blade, When came onwards in battle array The sepulchre-swarms, ensheathed in their arms, To sack and to rifle their prey?

How they joy in their spoil, as thy body the while Besieging, the reptile is vain, And her beetle-mate blind hums his gladness to find His defence in the lodge of thy brain!

Some dig where the sheen of the ivory has been, Some, the organ where music repair'd; In rabble and rout they come in and come out At the gashes their fangs have bared.

Do I hold in my hand a whole lordship of land, Represented by nakedness, here?

Perhaps not unkind to the helpless thy mind, Nor all unimparted thy gear; Perhaps stern of brow to thy tenantry thou!

To leanness their countenances grew-- 'Gainst their crave for respite, when thy clamour for right Required, to a moment, its due; While the frown of thy pride to the aged denied To cover their head from the chill, And humbly they stand, with their bonnet in hand, As cold blows the blast of the hill.

Thy serfs may look on, unheeding thy frown, Thy rents and thy mailings unpaid; All praise to the stroke their bondage that broke!

While but claims their obeisance the dead.

Or a head do I clutch, whose devices were such, That death must have lent them his sting-- So daring they were, so reckless of fear, As heaven had wanted a king?

Did the tongue of the lie, while it couch'd like a spy In the haunt of thy venomous jaws, Its slander display, as poisons its prey The devilish snake in the gra.s.s?

That member unchain'd, by strong bands is restrain'd, The inflexible shackles of death; And, its emblem, the trail of the worm, shall prevail Where its slaver once harbour'd beneath.

And oh! if thy scorn went down to thine urn And expired, with impenitent groan; To repose where thou art is of peace all thy part, And then to appear--at the Throne!

Like a frog, from the lake that leapeth, to take To the Judge of thy actions the way, And to hear from His lips, amid nature's eclipse, Thy sentence of termless dismay.

The hardness of iron thy bones shall environ, To bra.s.s-links the veins of thy frame Shall stiffen, and the glow of thy manhood shall grow Like the anvil that melts not in flame!

But wert thou the mould of a champion bold For G.o.d and his truth and his law?

Oh, then, though the fence of each limb and each sense Is broken--each gem with a flaw-- Be comforted thou! For rising in air Thy flight shall the clarion obey; And the sh.e.l.l of thy dust thou shalt leave to be crush'd, If they will, by the creatures of prey.

[106] Maiden or virgin--_orig._

AM BRUADAR.

THE DREAM.

We submit these further ill.u.s.trations of the moral maxims of "The Skull." In the original they are touched in phraseology scarcely unworthy of the poet's Saxon models.

As lockfasted in slumber's arms I lay and dream'd (so dreams our race When every spectral object charms, To melt, like shadow, in the chase),

A vision came; mine ear confess'd Its solemn sounds. "Thou man distraught!

Say, owns the wind thy hand's arrest, Or fills the world thy crave of thought?

"Since fell transgression ravaged here And reft Man's garden-joys away, He weeps his unavailing tear, And straggles, like a lamb astray.

"With shrilling bleat for comfort hie To every pinfold, humankind; Ah, there the fostering teat is dry, The stranger mother proves unkind.

"No rest for toil, no drink for drought, For bosom-peace the shadow's wing-- So feeds expectancy on nought, And suckles every lying thing.

"Some woe for ever wreathes its chain, And hope foretells the clasp undone; Relief at handbreadth seems, in vain Thy fetter'd arms embrace--'tis gone!

"Not all that trial's lore unlearns Of all the lies that life betrays, Avails, for still desire returns-- The last day's folly is to-day's.

"Thy wish has prosper'd--has its taste Survived the hour its l.u.s.t was drown'd; Or yields thine expectation's zest To full fruition, golden-crown'd?

"The rosebud is life's symbol bloom, 'Tis loved, 'tis coveted, 'tis riven-- Its grace, its fragrance, find a tomb, When to the grasping hand 'tis given.

"Go, search the world, wherever woe Of high or low the bosom wrings, There, gasp for gasp, and throe for throe, Is answer'd from the breast of kings.

"From every hearth-turf reeks its cloud, From every heart its sigh is roll'd; The rose's stalk is fang'd--one shroud Is both the sting's and honey's fold.

"Is wealth thy l.u.s.t--does envy pine Where high its tempting heaps are piled?

Look down, behold the fountain shine, And, deeper still, with dregs defiled!

"Quickens thy breath with rash inhale, And falls an insect[107] in its toil?

The creature turns thy life-blood pale, And blends thine ivory teeth with soil.

"When high thy fellow-mortal soars, His state is like the topmost nest-- It swings with every blast that roars, And every motion shakes its crest.

"And if the world for once is kind, Yet ever has the lot its bend; Where fortune has the crook inclined, Not all thy strength or art shall mend.