INTRODUCTION.

INTRODUCTION.

Now burst, ye Winter clouds that lower, Fling from your folds the piercing shower; Sing to the tower and leafless tree,

Ye cold winds of adversity;

Your blights, your chilling influence shed, On wareless heart, and houseless head,

Your ruth or fury I disdain,

I've found my Mountain Lyre again.

Come to my heart, my only stay!

Companion of a happier day!

Thou gift of Heaven, thou pledge of good,

Harp of the mountain and the wood!

I little thought, when first I tried

Thy notes by lone Saint Mary's side,

When in a deep untrodden den,

I found thee in the braken glen,

I little thought that idle toy
Should e'er become my only joy!

A maiden's youthful smiles had wove
Around my heart the toils of love,
When first thy magic wires I rung,
And on the breeze thy numbers flung.
The fervid tear played in mine eye;

I trembled, wept, and wondered why.
Sweet was the thrilling ecstacy:

I know not if 'twas love or thee.

Weened not my heart, when youth had flown Friendship would fade, or fortune frown; When pleasure, love, and mirth were past, That thou should'st prove my all at last!

Jeered by conceit and lordly pride,
I flung my soothing harp aside;

With wayward fortune strove a while;
Wrecked in a world of self and guile.
Again I sought the braken hill;

Again sat musing by the rill;

My wild sensations all were gone,

And only thou wert left alone.

Long hast thou in the moorland lain,

Now welcome to my heart again.

The russet weed of mountain gray

No more shall round thy border play;
No more the brake-flowers, o'er thee piled,

Shall mar thy tones and measures wild.

Harp of the Forest, thou shalt be

Fair as the bud on forest tree!

Sweet be thy strains, as those that swell

In Ettrick's green and fairy dell;
Soft as the breeze of falling even,
And purer than the dews of heaven.