The _Pleasures of Hope_ is
entitled to rank as a British classic; and his _Gertrude_ is
perhaps one of the most chaste and delicate poems in the language. His
fugitive pieces are more extensively known. Some of them rouse us like
the notes of a war trumpet, and have become exceedingly popular; which
every one who has heard the deep rolling voice of Braham or Phillips in
_Hohenlinden_, will attest. Neither can we forget the beautiful
_Valedictory Stanzas_ to John Kemble, at the farewell dinner to
that illustrious actor. Another piece, _the Last Man_, is indeed
fine--and worthy of Byron. Of Campbell's attachment to his native
country we have already spoken, but as a finely-wrought specimen of
this amiable passion we subjoin a brief poem:
LINES WRITTEN ON VISITING A SCENE IN ARGYLESHIRE.
At the silence of twilight's contemplative hour,
I have mused in a sorrowful mood,
On the wind-shaken weeds that embosom the bower,
Where the home of my forefathers stood.
All ruin'd and wild is their roofless abode,
And lonely the dark raven's sheltering tree:
And travell'd by few is the grass-cover'd road,
Where the hunter of deer and the warrior trode
To his hills that encircle the sea.
Yet wandering I found on my ruinous walk,
By the dial-stone aged and green,
One rose of the wilderness left on its stalk,
To mark where a garden had been.
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