202
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.
In every age which generous spirits bore,
The muse was cherished, and had strength to soar;
Disturbed by civil tumult she withdrew
From cities far, and lay concealed from view:
So the bright passion flower, in sunshine days,
Its varied colours to the light displays;
But when the blackening sky pours down a storm,
Close folds its leaves, and hides its radiant form;
Nor can the careful florist then behold
Its purple lustre, and its beams of gold[1].
The muse was cherished, and had strength to soar;
Disturbed by civil tumult she withdrew
From cities far, and lay concealed from view:
So the bright passion flower, in sunshine days,
Its varied colours to the light displays;
But when the blackening sky pours down a storm,
Close folds its leaves, and hides its radiant form;
Nor can the careful florist then behold
Its purple lustre, and its beams of gold[1].
In preparing this poem for the press, the original edition of Hume's Poems has been collated with a MS. of the Wodrow collection, in the library of the Faculty of Advocates. The phraseology of Hume is rather English than Scotish; and the orthography, which, at the period when our author lived, was extremely fluctuating and uncertain, has therefore been reduced to the modern standard, except in the Scotish words and phrases which he has adopted.
- ↑ Welsted's Works, 1787, p. 74.
