Mickle’s chief poems are “Syr Martyn” (1767) “Pollio” (1762) and some shorter pieces. In “Pollio” Mickle makes frequent references to his own love of Nature. The country he knew best was that about Roslin Castle where he was brought up, but he was not unfamiliar with other parts of southeast Scotland as is shown by his references to the Forth, the Annan, the Wauchope, the Ewes, to the dales of Tiviot, and to various country seats. His interest in Nature was varied in character. In “Almada Hill” (1781) and “May Day” there are frequent appreciative lines on mountains, as: Where Snowden’s front ascends the skies, The tower-like summits of the mountain shore. There are briefer references in such phrases as, “the hills of Cheviot,” “the thyme-clad mountain,” “the mountains gray,” “Old Snowden,” “Snowden’s hoary side,” “the curving mountain’s craggy brow,” which serve at least to show that Mickle was not unconscious of the scenery about him. One or two lines indicate the effect of the sea on his mind. As he stood on Almada Hill and looked out over old Ocean, By human eye untempted, unexplored, An awful solitude, it was the last dim wave, in boundless space Involved and lost[414] that held his impatient imagination. Even so brief a passage serves to illustrate the awakened curiosity, the new sense of pleasure in the infinite and the unknown, that characterized the romantic impulse. Another modern note in Mickle is his interest in moonlight and stars. There are several picturesque descriptive lines, as, When sudden, o’er the fir-crown’d hill The full orb’d moon arose.[415] How bright, emerging o’er yon broom-clad height The silver empress of the night appears.[416] While on the distant east Led by her starre, the horned moone looks o’er The bending forest, and with rays increast Ascends.[417] The star of evening glimmers o’er the dale And leads the silent host of heaven along.[418] In spite of the classical note in such a phrase as “silver empress” these lines show not only genuine pleasure in the loveliness of night, but also first-hand knowledge of its phenomena. Closeness of observation is further indicated in the lines on birds, as in the description of the “sootie black-bird,” that chants his shrill vespers from the topmost spray of some tall tree, or of the eagle that sails through the sky with “wide-spread wings unmov’d” till suddenly he “sheer descends” on the brow of Snowdon. In his representation of flowers Mickle notes the “daisie-whitened plain,” and “the white and yellow flowers that love the dank,” but he was especially attracted by flowers growing among rocks or upon cliffs. One close observation is of the twinkling lines of gossamer that on summer mornings hang from spray to spray. Mickle’s poems show a genuine love of Nature. He abounds in reminiscences of his happy youth