164 ODE TO THE MEMORY OF BURNS. And see the Scottish exile tann'd By many a far and foreign clime, With love that scorns the lapse of tine. Encamp'd by Indian rivers wild, The scenes that blessed him when a cnud, O deem not, midst this worldly strife, It is the muse that consecrates And thou, young hero, when thy pall And only tears of kindred fall, Who but the bard shall dress thy tomb, Such was the soldier-BURNS, forgive Farewell, high chief of Scottish song! And brand each vice with satire strong, Farewell! and ne'er may envy dare • Major Edward Hodge, of the 7th Hussars, who fell at the head of his squadron in the attack of the Polish Lancers. THE SOLDIER'S DREAM. Our bugles sang truce-for the night-cloud had lower'd, And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky; And thousands had sunk on the ground overpower'd, The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die. When reposing that night on my pallet of straw, By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain; At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw, And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again. Methought from the battle-field's dreadful array, Far, far I had roam'd on a desolate track: "Twas Autumn,—and sunshine arose on the way To the home of my fathers, that welcom'd me back. I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft In life's morning march, when my bosom was I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft, And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung. Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore, From my home and my weeping friends never to part; My little ones kiss'd me a thousand times o'er, And my wife sobb'd aloud in her fulness of heart. Stay, stay with us,-rest, thou art weary and worn; And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay ;But sorrow return'd with the dawning of morn, And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away. LINES WRITTEN ON VISITING A SCENE IN ARGYLESHIRE. AT the silence of twilight's contemplative hour, On the wind-shaken weeds that imbosom the bower, All ruin'd and wild is their roofless abode, And lonely the dark raven's sheltering tree : And travell'd by few is the grass-cover'd road, Where the hunter of deer and the warrior trode To his hills that encircle the sea. Yet wandering, I found on my ruinous walk, One rose of the wilderness left on its stalk, All wild in the silence of nature, it drew, |