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CONCLUSION.

Go forth, my Song, upon thy venturous way;
Go boldly forth; nor yet thy master blame,
Who chose no patron for his humble lay,

There was

And graced thy numbers with no friendly name, Whose partial zeal might smooth thy path to fame. and O! how many sorrows crowd Into these two brief words!-there was a claim By generous friendship given-had fate allow'd, It well had bid thee rank the proudest of the proud!

All angel now-yet little less than all,
While still a pilgrim in our world below!
What 'vails it us that patience to recall,
Which hid its own to soothe all other woe;
What 'vails to tell, how Virtue's purest glow
Shone yet more lovely in a form so fair:1

And, least of all, what 'vails the world should know,
That one poor garland, twined to deck thy hair,
Is hung upon thy hearse, to droop and wither there!

'[The reader is referred to Mr. Hogg's "Pilgrims of the Sun" for some beautiful lines, and a highly interesting note, on the death of the Duchess of Buccleuch. See ante, p. 10.]

THE

VISION OF DON RODERICK.

Quid dignum memorare tuis, Hispania, terris,

Vox humana valet!·

CLAUDIAN,

ΤΟ

JOHN WHITMORE, Esq.

AND TO THE

COMMITTEE OF SUBSCRIBERS FOR RELIEF OF THE PORTUGUESE SUFFERERS, IN WHICH HE PRESIDES,

THIS POEM,

(THE VISION OF DON RODERICK,)

COMPOSED FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE FUND
UNDER THEIR MANAGEMENT,

IS

RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED

BY

WALTER SCOTT.

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LIVES there a strain, whose sounds of mounting fire
May rise distinguished o'er the din of war;
Or died it with yon Master of the Lyre,
Who sung beleaguer'd Ilion's evil star?
Such, WELLINGTON, might reach thee from afar,
Wafting its descant wide o'er Ocean's range;
Nor shouts, nor clashing arms, its mood could mar,

All as it swell'd 'twixt each loud trumpet-change, That clangs to Britain victory, to Portugal revenge!

II.

Yes! such a strain, with all o'er-pouring measure, Might melodize with each tumultuous sound, Each voice of fear or triumph, woe or pleasure,

That rings Mondego's ravaged shores around; The thundering cry of hosts with conquest crown'd, The female shriek, the ruin'd peasant's moan, The shout of captives from their chains unbound, The foil'd oppressor's deep and sullen groan, A Nation's choral hymn for tyranny o'erthrown.

III.

But we, weak minstrels of a laggard day,
Skill'd but to imitate an elder page,

Timid and raptureless, can we repay

The debt thou claim'st in this exhausted age? Thou givest our lyres a theme, that might engage

Those that could send thy name o'er sea and land, While sea and land shall last; for Homer's rage

A theme; a theme for Milton's mighty handHow much unmeet for us, a faint degenerate band!

IV.

Ye mountains stern! within whose rugged breast

repose:

The friends of Scottish freedom found Ye torrents, whose hoarse sounds have soothed their

rest,

Returning from the field of vanquish'd foes;
Say have ye lost each wild majestic close,
That erst the choir of Bards or Druids flung;
What time their hymn of victory arose,

And Cattraeth's glens with voice of triumph rung, And mystic Merlin harp'd, and grey-hair'd Llywarch sung!1

1 This locality may startle those readers who do not recollect, that much of the ancient poetry preserved in Wales refers less to the history of the Principality to which that name is now limited, than to events which happened in the north-west of England, and south-west of Scotland, where the Britons for a long time made a stand against the Saxons. The battle of Cattraeth, lamented by the celebrated Aneurin, is supposed by the learned Dr. Leyden to have been fought on the skirts of Ettrick Forest. It is known to the English reader by the paraphrase of Gray, beginning,

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Had I but the torrent's might,

With headlong rage and wild affright," &c.

But it is not so generally known that the champions, mourned in this beautiful dirge, were the British inhabitants of Edinburgh, who were cut off by the Saxons of Deiria, or Northumberland,

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