But soon fled The dreams of love fantastic! Still the Friend, The Friend, the wild roam o'er the drifted snows Remain unsung! then when the wintry view Objectless, mist-hidden, or in uncouth forms Prank'd by the arrowy flake might aptly yield New stores to shaping fantasy, I rov'd With him my lov'd companion! Oh, 'twas sweet; Ye who have known the swell that heaves the breast Pregnant with loftiest poesy, declare Is aught more soothing to the charmed soul Than friendship's glow, the independent dream Gathering when all the frivolous shews are fled Of artificial life; when the wild step Boundeth on wide existence, unbeheld, Uncheck'd, and the heart fashioneth its hope In Nature's school, while Nature bursts around, Nor Man her spoiler meddles in the scene! Farewell, dear day, much hath it sooth'd my heart To chaunt thy frail memorial. Now advance The darkening years, and I do sojourn, home! From thee afar. Where the broad-bosom'd hills, Swept by perpetual clouds, of Scotland, rise, Me fate compels to tarry. Ditty quaint or custom'd carol, there my vacant ear Ne'er blest! I thought of home and happier days! And as I thought, my vexed spirit blam'd That austere race, who, mindless of the glee Of good old festival, coldly forbade Th' observance which of mortal life relieves The languid sameness, seeming too to bring Sanction from hoar antiquity and years Long past! * * * *. III.--BARRON FIELD'S POEMS (1820) "FIRST FRUITS OF AUSTRALIAN POETRY" Sydney, New South Wales. Printed for Private Distribution I first adventure; follow me who list; And be the second Austral Harmonist. Whoever thou art that hast transplanted the British wood-notes to the far-off forest which the Kangaroo haunts--whether thou art some involuntary exile that solaces his sad estrangement with recurrence to his native notes, with more wisdom than those captive Hebrews of old refused to sing their Sion songs in a strange land--or whether, as we rather suspect, thou art that valued friend of ours, who, in thy young time of life, together with thy faithful bride, thy newly "wedded flower," didst, in obedience to the stern voice of duty, quit thy friends, thy family, thy pleasing avocations, the Muses with which thou wert as deeply smitten as any, we believe, in our age and country, to go and administer tedious justice in inauspicious unliterary THIEFLAND[38]--we reclaim thee for our own, and gladly would transport thee back to thy native "fields," and studies congenial to thy habits. [38] An elegant periphrasis for _the Bay_. Mr. Coleridge led us the way--"CLOUDLAND, gorgeous land."