I matched with Scotland’s heathery hills The sweetbrier and the clover; With Ayr and Doon, my native rills, Their wood hymns chanting over. O’er rank and pomp, as he had seen, I saw the Man uprising; No longer common or unclean, The child of God’s baptizing! With clearer eyes I saw the worth Of life among the lowly; The Bible at his Cotter’s hearth Had made my own more holy. And if at times an evil strain, To lawless love appealing, Broke in upon the sweet refrain Of pure and healthful feeling, It died upon the eye and ear, No inward answer gaining; No heart had I to see or hear The discord and the staining. Let those who never erred forget His worth, in vain bewailings; Sweet Soul of Song! I own my debt Uncancelled by his failings! Lament who will the ribald line Which tells his lapse from duty, How kissed the maddening lips of wine Or wanton ones of beauty; But think, while falls that shade between The erring one and Heaven, That he who loved like Magdalen, Like her may be forgiven. Not his the song whose thunderous chime Eternal echoes render; The mournful Tuscan’s haunted rhyme, And Milton’s starry splendor! But who his human heart has laid To Nature’s bosom nearer? Who sweetened toil like him, or paid To love a tribute dearer? Through all his tuneful art, how strong The human feeling gushes! The very moonlight of his song Is warm with smiles and blushes! Give lettered pomp to teeth of Time, So “Bonnie Doon” but tarry; Blot out the Epic’s stately rhyme, But spare his Highland Mary! THE SHIP-BUILDERS The sky is ruddy in the east, The earth is gray below, And, spectral in the river-mist, The ship’s white timbers show. Then let the sounds of measured stroke And grating saw begin; The broad-axe to the gnarlèd oak, The mallet to the pin!