Poems, &c. (1790): Wherein It Is Attempted To Describe Certain Views Of Nature And Of Rustic Manners; And Also, To Point Out, In Some Instances, The Different Influence Which The Same Circumstances Produce On Different CharactersBaillie, Joanna
General
Poems, &c. (1790): Wherein It Is Attempted To Describe Certain Views Of Nature And Of Rustic Manners; And Also, To Point Out, In Some Instances, The Different Influence Which The Same Circumstances Produce On Different Characters
Baillie, Joanna
English poetry -- 18th century
But short was the triumph of Lorma; the hour of his fading was near.
Whilst a bard rais'd the song of the battle, his dim eyes were closed in
death.
He fell like a ruined tow'r; like a fragment of times that are past:
Like a rock whose foundation is worn with the lashes of many a wave.
Four grey head warriors of Lorma remain'd from the days of his youth:
They mourn'd o'er the fall of their lord; and they bore him to his dark
narrow house.
His memorial was rais'd on the hill; and the lovely Orvina wept over it.
She bent her fair form o'er the heap; and her sorrow was silent, and
gentle.
It flow'd like the pure twinkling dream beneath the green shade of the
fern.
The hunters oft bless it at noon, tho' the strangers perceive not its
course.
The wind of the hill rais'd her locks, and Lochallen beheld her in grief.
The soul of the hero was knit to the tear-eyed daughter of Lorma.
She was graceful and tall as the willow, that bends o'er the deep shady
stream.
Her eye like a sun-beam on water, that gleams thro' the dark skirting
reeds.
Her hair like the light wreathing cloud, that floats on the brow of the
hill,
When the beam of the morning is there, and it scatters its skirts to the
wind.
Lovely and soft were her smiles, like a glimpse from the white riven
cloud,
When the sun hastens over the lake, and a summer show'r ruffles its bosom.
Her voice was the sweet sound of midnight, that visits the ear of the
bard,
When he darts from the place of his slumber, and calls on some far distant
friend.
She was fair 'mongst the maids of her time; and she soften'd the wrath of
the mighty.
Their eyes lighten'd up in her presence; they dropt their dark spears as
she spoke.
Lochallen was firm in his strength, and unmov'd in the battle of heroes;
Like a rock-fenced isle of the ocean, that shews its dark head thro' the
storm.
His brow was like a cliff on the shore, that fore-warneth the hunters of
Ithona;
For there gleams the first ray of morning, and there broods the mist ere
the storm:
It shone, and it darken'd by turns, as the strength of his passions arose.
He was terrible as a gathering storm, when his soul learnt the wrongs of
the feeble.
His eye was the lightning of shields; he was swift as a blast in its
course.
When the warriours return'd from the field, and the sons of the mighty
assembled,
He was graceful as the light tow'ring cloud that rises from the blue
bounded main.
Gentle and fair was his form in the tow'rs of the hilly Ithona.
His voice cheer'd the soul of the sad; he would sport with a child in the
hall.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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