“O haste thee, haste!” the lady cries, “Though tempests round us gather; I’ll meet the raging of the skies, But not an angry father.” The boat has left a stormy land, A stormy sea before her,— When, oh! too strong for human hand, The tempest gathered o’er her. And still they rowed amidst the roar Of waters fast prevailing: Lord Ullin reached that fatal shore, His wrath was changed to wailing. For sore dismayed, through storm and shade, His child he did discover: One lovely hand she stretched for aid, And one was round her lover. “Come back! come back!” he cried in grief, “Across this stormy water: And I’ll forgive your Highland chief, My daughter!—oh my daughter!” Twas vain: the loud waves lashed the shore, Return or aid preventing: The waters wild went o’er his child— And he was left lamenting. [81] The evil spirit of the waters. ODE TO THE MEMORY OF BURNS. Soul of the Poet! wheresoe’er, Reclaimed from earth, thy genius plume Her wings of immortality: Suspend thy harp in happier sphere, And with thine influence illume The gladness of our jubilee. And fly like fiends from secret spell, Discord and strife, at BURNS’S name, Exorcised by his memory; For he was chief of bards that swell The heart with songs of social flame, And high delicious revelry. And Love’s own strain to him was given, To warble all its ecstasies With Pythian words unsought, unwilled— Love, the surviving gift of Heaven, The choicest sweet of Paradise, In life’s else bitter cup distilled. Who that has melted o’er his lay To Mary’s soul, in Heaven above, But pictured sees, in fancy strong, The landscape and the livelong day That smiled upon their mutual love? Who that has felt forgets the song? Nor skilled one flame alone to fan: His country’s high-souled peasantry What patriot-pride he taught!—how much To weigh the inborn worth of man! And rustic life and poverty Grow beautiful beneath his touch. Him, in his clay-built cot,[82] the muse Entranced, and showed him all the forms Of fairy-light and wizard gloom (That only gifted Poet views), The Genii of the floods and storms, And martial shades from Glory’s tomb. On Bannock-field what thoughts arouse The swain whom BURNS’S song inspires? Beat not his Caledonian veins, As o’er the heroic turf he ploughs, With all the spirit of his sires, And all their scorn of death and chains? And see the Scottish exile tanned By many a far and foreign clime, Bend o’er his home-born verse, and weep In memory of his native land, With love that scorns the lapse of time, And ties that stretch beyond the deep. Encamped by Indian rivers wild, The soldier resting on his arms, In BURNS’S carol sweet recalls The scenes that blessed him when a child, And glows and gladdens at the charms Of Scotia’s woods and waterfalls.