74
CLYDE;
When Phœbus in the east, ascending bright, 880
Unlocks the treasuries of celestial light,
The vales and plains a golden deluge fills,
Which brightens all the stream, and gilds the hills.
Clear shine the fields, in flowing splendours drowned;
The waving radiance boundless rolls around;
A shining sea, from Tinto's cloudy brow
To northern mountains of perennial snow.
How instantaneous flies the rapid sight
Through all the wide, the boundless fields of light!
This glance just strikes the verdant turf we tread; 890
The next flies o'er the distant mountain's head.
Remote in space the twinkling star is seen,
Though twice ten thousand systems intervene.
The tufted grass lines Bothwell's ancient hall;
The fox peeps cautious from the creviced wall;
Where once proud Murray, Clydesdale's ancient lord,
A mimic sovereign, held the festal board;
But dark oblivion has erased the name
Of many a hero from the lists of fame.
When ebbed their noble blood, a damsel fair 900
Consigned their power to Douglas the austere;
Who bade the Gothic temple rise sublime,
Still fresh and youthful from the wrecks of time.
Unlocks the treasuries of celestial light,
The vales and plains a golden deluge fills,
Which brightens all the stream, and gilds the hills.
Clear shine the fields, in flowing splendours drowned;
The waving radiance boundless rolls around;
A shining sea, from Tinto's cloudy brow
To northern mountains of perennial snow.
How instantaneous flies the rapid sight
Through all the wide, the boundless fields of light!
This glance just strikes the verdant turf we tread; 890
The next flies o'er the distant mountain's head.
Remote in space the twinkling star is seen,
Though twice ten thousand systems intervene.
The tufted grass lines Bothwell's ancient hall;
The fox peeps cautious from the creviced wall;
Where once proud Murray, Clydesdale's ancient lord,
A mimic sovereign, held the festal board;
But dark oblivion has erased the name
Of many a hero from the lists of fame.
When ebbed their noble blood, a damsel fair 900
Consigned their power to Douglas the austere;
Who bade the Gothic temple rise sublime,
Still fresh and youthful from the wrecks of time.
