Kindling the waters in its flight, The prow wakes splendour; and the oar, That rose and fell unseen before, Flashes in a sea of light! Glad sign, and sure! for now we hail Thy flowers, Glenfinart, in the gale; And bright indeed the path should be, That leads to Friendship and to Thee! Oh blest retreat, and sacred too! Sacred as when the bell of prayer Toll’d duly on the desert air, And crosses deck’d thy summits blue. Oft, like some lov’d romantic tale, Oft shall my weary mind recall, Amid the hum and stir of men, Thy beechen grove and waterfall, Thy ferry with its gliding sail, And Her—the Lady of the Glen! [1] Loch-Lomond. [2] A famous out-law. [3] Signifying in the Erse language an Isthmus. [4] Loch-Long. [5] A phenomenon described by many navigators. A FAREWELL. Once more, enchanting girl, adieu! I must be gone while yet I may, Oft shall I weep to think of you; But here I will not, cannot stay. The sweet expression of that face. For ever changing, yet the same, Ah no, I dare not turn to trace. It melts my soul, it fires my frame! Yet give me, give me, ere I go, One little lock of those so blest, That lend your cheek a warmer glow, And on your white neck love to rest. —Say, when to kindle soft delight, That hand has chanc’d with mine to meet, How could its thrilling touch excite A sigh so short, and yet so sweet? O say—but no, it must not be. Adieu! A long, a long adieu! —Yet still, methinks, you frown on me; Or never could I fly from you. TO THE BUTTERFLY. Child of the sun! pursue thy rapturous flight, Mingling with her thou lov’st in fields of light; And, where the flowers of paradise unfold, Quaff fragrant nectar from their cups of gold. There shall thy wings, rich as an evening-sky, Expand and shut with silent ecstasy! —Yet wert thou once a worm, a thing that crept On the bare earth, then wrought a tomb and slept! And such is man; soon from his cell of clay To burst a seraph in the blaze of day! VERSES WRITTEN IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.[1]