Like a brotherless hermit, the last of its race,
All wild in the silence of nature, it drew,
From each wandering sun-beam, a lonely embrace
For the night-weed and thorn overshadow'd the place,
Where the flower of my forefathers grew.
Sweet bud of the wilderness! emblem of all
That remains in this desolate heart!
The fabric of bliss to its centre may fall,
But patience shall never depart!
Though the wilds of enchantment, all vernal and bright,
In the days of delusion by fancy combined
With the vanishing phantoms of love and delight,
Abandon my soul, like a dream of the night,
And leave but a desert behind.
Be hush'd, my dark spirit! For wisdom condemns
When the faint and the feeble deplore;
Be strong as the rock of the ocean that stems
A thousand wild waves on the shore!
Through the perils of chance, and the scowl of disdain,
May thy front be unalter'd, thy courage elate!
Yea! even the name I have worshipp'd in vain
Shall awake not the sigh of remembrance again:
To bear is to conquer our fate.
Of a similar description are his "Lines on revisiting a Scottish
River."[6]
[6] See MIRROR, No. 257.
Mr. Campbell contributes but little to the pages of the New Monthly
Magazine: still, what he writes is excellent, and as we uniformly
transfer his pieces to the _Mirror_, we need not recapitulate them.
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